The Russian Federation Supreme Court’s ruling in the so-called “Dolina case” has significantly changed judicial practice regarding disputes involving telephone fraud in real estate transactions. This is the conclusion reached by experts at the Center for Evidence-Based Expertise at the Gaidar Institute after analyzing court decisions from 2026.
According to the study, in 2026, courts ruled in favor of bona fide buyers in 29 out of 34 cases involving telephone fraud. Thus, in 85% of cases, buyers retained legal protection, which is significantly higher than the figures for 2023–2025. At the same time, experts note that existing legislation still does not guarantee buyers complete protection.
“The Supreme Court’s position in the ‘Dolina case’ has effectively set a new benchmark for lower courts and significantly strengthened the protection of bona fide buyers. However, it is still too early to say that the problem has been completely resolved. Three key risks remain today: a transaction may be challenged due to the seller’s mental disorder; a buyer may be unjustifiably deemed to be acting in bad faith; and even with a court ruling, the buyer may not recover the money paid for the apartment. “To definitively resolve the problem, it is necessary either to eliminate the possibility of challenging a transaction with a buyer acting in good faith, or to establish a mechanism whereby the seller cannot reclaim the apartment until the funds have been fully refunded to the buyer,” Ekaterina Papchenkova, Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Expertise at the Gaidar Institute, told Izvestia.
According to the expert, transactions can currently be challenged on three grounds: if they were entered into due to error, fraud, or the seller’s inability to understand the significance of their actions. While the law generally protects a bona fide buyer in the first two cases, if the seller is deemed legally incompetent, the apartment may be reclaimed regardless of the buyer’s good faith.
At the Center for Evidence-Based Expertise of the Gaidar Institute, experts believe that the existing risks can be eliminated in two ways: either to completely prohibit the contesting of transactions with buyers acting in good faith, as is done in a number of European countries, or to enshrine in law the principle of simultaneous return of property and funds, under which the seller cannot reclaim the apartment until they have compensated the buyer for the full cost of the transaction.