Peculiarities of modern judicial practice regarding negatoria defense of rights to land plots

The article is devoted to the analysis, generalization and systematization of the practice of the Supreme Court in terms of the application of negatoria defense of land rights. Scientific approaches to the essence and content of negatoria defense of land rights are considered. Negatoria defense is compared with related defense methods, in particular, with termination of the infringing action and vindicatio. The following conclusions were drawn from the analyzed court decisions: 1) under the rebuttable presumption, the owner always has the right to own a plot of land, if the state registration of ownership of it has taken place. The owner’s possession is a direct, permanent, legal title-based possession of the land plot. Therefore, in case of violation of this ownership through state registration of another person’s property right on the same plot, vindicatio should be used for defense; 2) any other possession, different from the possession of the owner, is indirect, temporary, can be both legal and illegal. In the case of violations of ownership by such a temporary possessor of a land plot (both legal and illegal), the owner, as always the legal owner, must apply negatoria defense; 3) a temporary legal possessor of a plot of land (whose right to land is registered in the State Register of Rights to Real Property) in case of violations of his possession by another temporary possessor, whose right to land is also registered in the State Register of Rights to Real Property and their Encumbrances, has to apply vindicatio for defense; 4) a temporary legal possessor of a plot of land (whose right to land is registered in the State Register of Real Property Rights) in case of violations of his possession by another temporary possessor, whose right is not registered in the register, is defensed by applying negatoria defense. Exceptions to these rules for certain categories of land plots made by the Supreme Court are listed.