Media & Resources
AT Lawyers Helped a Foreign Client Win a Lasting Dispute Over Expensive Property
DATE: January 14, 2021 | AUTHOR: AT
AT lawyers successfully defended the interests of a foreign private client in a real estate dispute. The case, which lasted a total of more than three years, concerned the invalidation of agreements on the sale and purchase of expensive property.
The plaintiff, a prior property owner, sued in an attempt to invalidate the contracts of sale of the properties. He claimed that his signature on the contracts was forged and in fact he had not signed any documents.
The courts of the first and appellate instances granted the plaintiff’s claims in full. The Presidium of the Moscow City Court, having considered the cassation appeal of the current and previous owners, AT’s clients, overturned the judicial acts of the lower courts and remitted the case for new consideration.
At the new hearing the courts of the first and appellate instances dismissed the plaintiff’s claims. They took as their basis the legal position proposed by AT’s lawyers. It boiled down to three main points:
- Plaintiff missed the statute of limitations;
- The plaintiff approved the conclusion of the disputed contracts by subsequent actions; this created for him the rights and obligations under these contracts from the time of their conclusion;
- Plaintiff’s claim to invalidate the transactions is not legally relevant because he acted in bad faith; thus, his conduct gave rise to a reliance on the validity of the disputed contracts. Thus, he lost the right to invoke their invalidity (estoppel).
On December 24, 2020, the Second Court of General Jurisdiction upheld the judgments of the lower courts. This definitively sealed the AT principals’ victory in the litigation.
The interests of the principals were represented by Yulia Zamyatina, Ilya Aleschev, Elizaveta Molosnova and Alyona Kosina.