An open letter of Svitlana Tymchenko, a former owner of "Staryi Vertep" ("Старий Вертеп") restaurant in the city of Pereyaslav, Kyiv Oblast.

What indeed threatens the interests of state and society became clear the day russian troops treacherously invaded Ukraine, killing innocents and destroying everything around them.

Do other threats exist? Turns out, according to some employees of the prosecutor’s office and law enforcement officials, they do. However, only in their imagination and unjustified desire to introduce new "rules" concerning the control of state budget funds turnover.

This can happen, for example, if one of the courts makes an unlawful ruling which can set a precedent for an unlawful court practice.

Those are exactly the events that are taking place right now in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi district court in Kyiv Oblast.

A hearing will happen in the aforementioned court at the Kyiv Oblast prosecutor office’s request against a private person, who back in 2018 sold their property, specifically a building of a former restaurant "Staryi Vertep" and surrounding land plot, to its neighbor – National Historical and Ethnographic Reserve (NHER) "Pereyaslav". The parties to the contract were a private person and NHER "Pereyaslav". A litigation was initiated by prosecutor’s office in the interests of Ministry of Culture and Information Policy and NHER "Pereyaslav".

The essence of the lawsuit is that, according to the prosecutor’s office, the concluded contract does not align with the interests of state and society… The prosecution claims that when the contested contract was concluded with the violation of the laws about establishing the market value and its review, that the process of concluding a contract of public procurement was not followed properly.

First of all, Ministry of Culture and Information Policy is not a party to the contract. It has, according to the law and procedures, approved the financing and the draft of the deal and allocated the funds to acquire the real estate, therefore can not be a defendant in the case.

Second, when procuring land, buildings and other real estate or rights to real estate, the Law of Ukraine "On public procurement" states that it does not apply in cases when the subject of procurement is a purchase, renting of land, buildings and other real estate or rights to real estate.

Third, according to the Civil Code of Ukraine, the price in the contract is set according to the agreement of the parties to the contract. Contested contracts do not fall under the requirements of the laws about the application of prices, tariffs, rates etc., that are set and regulated by competent government authorities or local governments.

Prosecutor’s office is trying to establish a new principle of setting the prices in agreements – according to them the price has to be established not by the agreement of parties, but according to the reports of appraisers, that are given to the notaries for tax purposes. This way the prosecution additionally tries to establish the obligation of the notaries to control the price of the agreement during its certification!

It is clear that the reports of the subject of appraisal activity, that are registered in the Unified Base of Evaluation Reports, are used exclusively for the taxation purposes of the sale of real estate. This is directly indicated by art. 172 of the Tax Code of Ukraine, art. 7 of Law of Ukraine "On the appraisal of property and professional appraisal activity in Ukraine" and paragraph 1 of the Procedure of maintaining a unified registry on appraisal reports, approved by the order of State Property Fund of Ukraine from 17.05.2018, № 658.

Prosecution’s position is that the sales contracts, supposedly, contained intentionally misleading information, in particular "significantly higher" price, which the seller unilaterally, somehow without the agreement of the other party, "intentionally" added to the contract… Then the seller, after signing, "falsified" these agreements "by giving legal status to the indicated official document with the signature"… Notary, according to the prosecution, didn’t fulfil their obligation to verify the "market value" of the contested real estate and incorrectly determined the price in the contract.

It's necessary to remind that according to the Civil code of Ukraine about the legal consequences of a transaction that goes against the interests of the state and the society indicates that for the seller the consequence of recognizing this transaction as invalid is count mandated obligation to return to the other party all funds that were obtained, but the property itself will not be returned.

This is a raiding attempt, to confiscate under the guise of a "protection" of the interests of state and society.

We are inviting members of press and others who are not indifferent to this "historic" court hearing, which will take place on the 20th of May 2022 at 14:00 in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi district court in Kyiv Oblast, address: 08400, Kyiv Oblast, Pereyaslav City, 65 Boghdan Khmelnytskyi street.