A wave of real estate scams and dispossession of the elderly from their apartments in the heart of Kyiv

A wave of real estate scams and dispossession of the elderly from their apartments in the heart of Kyiv

In recent days, several disturbing cases have been exposed in the Ukrainian capital, raising difficult questions regarding the protection of the property of elderly citizens. According to reports from Реальний Київ | Украина, an elderly man from Kyiv who suffered from alcohol dependency fell victim to a complex scam: fraudsters posed as recruitment officers (TCC) and convinced him to transfer his rights to his apartment and a house in the Bucha district to strangers, threatening that his property would be confiscated by the authorities.

At the same time, extensive reports in local media, including Київ Головне, Киевский Движ, and Київ | Times, reveal another case in which an elderly man's apartment was sold at auction while he was hospitalized. The sale was carried out due to a debt for municipal services that reached 875,000 hryvnias.

According to Юрист пише…, the enormous debt accumulated due to "multi-year calculations of water loss in the building" as a result of the lack of individual water meters in the elderly man's apartment. The result was grim: the apartment was sold for one million hryvnias, while the elderly man is entitled to only 125,000 hryvnias from the balance. Today, the property is already being offered for sale on the free market for 1.8 million hryvnias.

Sources such as Всевидящее ОКО: Україна and Україна Online also described the case as a "tragedy" (or labeled it "trash"), emphasizing the severe economic harm to the original property owner due to collective building charges imposed on a single tenant.