The UAC Deputy Chairman Mykhailo Sokolov took part in a meeting about the creation of a public anti-raider platform initiated by the USAID Agricultural and Rural Development Program “AGRO”.

The public anti-raider platform will unite lawyers, farmers, representatives of the Chamber of Commerce and communities. The purpose of the platform is to protect the agricultural producers’ business from illegal seizures, which occur as a result of improper registration of rights, making of illegal registration in the state registers and cadastres, and low level of awareness of agricultural producers.

The UAC welcomes the USAID project's initiative to consolidate the efforts of a wide range of public unions and experts to improve anti-raider legislation. Unfortunately, this problem remains relevant and farmers continue to suffer from raider attacks. Therefore, the UAC considers to develop and adopt a comprehensive bill that would block raiding and solve problems that remain unresolved.

"The proposal of the UAC in this direction is the introduction at the legislative level of the so-called period of freezing in the implementation of registration actions. The point of the proposal is that registration actions with real estate will have to be carried out in two stages. At the first stage, the initiator of the registration action submits all the necessary documents to the registrar, and the registrar downloads them into the system. After that, the relevant information is published, and the property owner and its tenant, if any, are notified that a person has applied to the registrar with a request for registration. The action is carried out through a period of time established by the law - the “freezing” period- if the owner or tenant has not objected to its implementation. Thus, it will be impossible all those cases when farmers wake up and learn that at night they allegedly sold or donated their property to someone, or some "black" notary re-registered the lease agreement for someone else, without any legal grounds," Mykhailo Sokolov explained.

The UAC became the only the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Association that joined the creation of a public anti-raider platform.

The participants of the meeting outlined several areas of work: improvement of the legal system, institutional structure and technological tools, improvement of law enforcement practices to stop raiders. Experts who have joined the anti-raider platform will investigate the causes of raiding, unite and support anti-raider initiatives from partner organizations for creation an atmosphere of public rejection of any manifestations of raiding.

Also, the participants of the meeting are working on initiatives that will be implemented soon. In particular, the analysis of bills that may affect the issues of raiding and fighting against it, as well as the analysis of executive regulation adopted in addition to existing anti-raider laws. The anti-raider platform will submit its proposals to the relevant state bodies.