The purpose of this section is to comment on news regarding the complexities of the Russian and other Eastern European legal systems, in order to contribute to your understanding.

Our analysis comes from a legal point of view, far from media sensationalism or a politically biased analysis.

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In the beginning of 2007 a new migratory law has come into force in Russia. Apparently, it has completely changed the procedure of registration of foreign citizens who decide to visit Russia.

Here you have a link to the full article.

It may be of your interest if you are planning to visit Russia both as a tourist or for business purposes.

The BBC has recently published an article online about issues regarding property in Moscow; essentially describing the ownership of immovable property in Russia as “lawlessness”.

The article describes the case of a group of occupants of a block of flats in Moscow, who found that the house where they were living was being demolished to build new property, and as a result describes the situation as a consequence of corruption in a legal or administrative system that was favoring the powerful “mafiosi”, an idea that abounds in western media when it comes to talk about Russia.

In our opinion, the BBC writer does not take into account the complexity of the present situation.

Laws regarding private property are relatively new in our country. As a consequence, even Russian people unfortunately fail to understand them and to act accordingly in order to protect their rights.

The privatization that started in the early 90s opened a process that allowed the Russian people to register the ownership of immovable property, based on the concept of “previous usage”. The facts mentioned in this BBC article are not possible nowadays in Russia unless the occupants of a house have not appropriately registered their property or have failed to prove their rights, so the rights over the property are disputed.

Of course, it could be argued that the powerful would always be in a better position to defend their cases, but that happens not only in Russia, it happens in any country.

We have created new content in our site, a series of articles on legal issues regarding:

Property in Russia, the process of purchasing and registering real estate in Russia, price trends, etc.
Business in Russia, the process of setting up a business in Russia, hiring employees, taxes, etc.
Personal legal matters, including travelling to Russia, visas and registration of foreigners, marriage and divorce in Russia, etc.

We hope they will be of your interest.