Landowners who fail to properly maintain or utilize their property risk facing fines and potential seizure of their land, according to Vage Rybchenko, head of the legal reception office of the Moscow Union of Gardeners.

New regulations set to take effect on September 1, 2025, define the conditions under which a plot is considered unused, with owners potentially facing penalties for non-compliance. A plot is deemed unused after three years of failing to meet specific criteria.

Criteria for determining non-use of land include:

• If more than half of the land is covered in garbage or waste.
• Absence of registered buildings or structures for five or more years, where construction is legally permissible.
• Lack of a residential building on an individual housing construction plot after seven years.
• Presence of dilapidated buildings lacking roofs or windows.
• Weeds taller than one meter occupying more than half of a garden plot.

Owners who violate these regulations may receive an order to correct the issues. Fines range from 1 to 1.5% of the plot’s cadastral value, with a minimum penalty of twenty thousand rubles.

Ignoring these requirements can lead to the seizure of the land plot. The Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO RF) also includes various other regulations that gardeners must adhere to, as highlighted by Oksana Vasilyeva, Associate Professor at the Financial University under the Government.