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Ara Hakobyan, Director of “Kecharis Hotel” Limited Liability Company, filed a lawsuit against the Cadastre Committee, demanding to declare the state registration of 10 December, 2021n for the real estate located at 14 Aivazovsky Street invalid and oblige to register the ownership right of the plaintiff to the same address.

The case was assigned to Judge Yelena Arakelyan.

It should be noted that Iravaban.net has published an investigation  about 70 auctions announced for the area at 14 Aivazovsky Street, the winners in which are related to Mihran Poghosyan.

Within the framework of the case, at the request of the plaintiff Ara Hakobyan, the court applied security of the claim, prohibiting the RA Cadastre Committee and “Arndane” LLC (currently the registered owner of the property at 14 Aivazovsky) to perform any action or transaction related to the property .

On 29 March, a regular session in the case was held, during which Nerses Aghababyan, the

Nerses Aghababyan

representative the third party of “Arndane” LLC, presented a motion to change the means of securing the claim. The party proposes to prohibit the alienation of immovable property, as well as to prohibit the Cadastre Committee from performing state registration of any right leading to a change of owner.

“In our opinion, the security of the applied claim is not clear. It is not clear what is meant by prohibiting any “action”. An action can be any physical relationship with the land and the buildings on it, which is an extremely broad and vague prohibition,” Nerses Aghababyan noted, adding that such a broad understanding of the word “action” limits the rights of “Arndane”.

He noted that the defendant’s representatives had applied to the Compulsory Enforcement Service, stating that the company was violating the means of securing the claim. The employees of the service came to the mentioned area and, checking on the spot, did not record any violations.

According to the lawyer, prohibiting the alienation of the disputed property is sufficient to ensure the execution of the final judicial act. “This will also solve the issue of damages that the company is suffering under these conditions. Let me remind that “Arndane” company paid 345 million AMD for this property and until today it is not even able to use this property. The transfer of the property by lease, the use of the property by the company in other ways, the benefiting from it in any way cannot make it impossible or difficult to execute the judicial act.

Varazdat Asatryan, the representative of Ara Hakobyan, stated that the petition is groundless for several

Varazdat Asatryan

reasons. According to him, the provision of the applied claim is quite clear, and the example given by the company regarding the lease is a form of possession.

“The position voiced by my colleague regarding damages is also unfounded. We have justified that there are no damages. There are no mandatory elements of damage, causal damage, fault, expression of fault, unlawful purpose. In terms of damages, the characteristics defined by the law are absent,” the lawyer said.

According to him, by performing actions, the company can encumber the property with divisible and indivisible improvements. “If for example they plant trees there, carry out certain economic activities, justify that it was done by them and that these are inseparable improvements, they should go and demand from the real owner, which will cause an additional problem in terms of the parties to the legal relationship.”

Varazdat Asatryan expressed the opinion that the petition, if granted, will create obstacles to ensure the execution of the final court act. “I believe that the presented petition is groundless, I ask you to reject it.”

Karo Asatryan, the representative of bankruptcy administrator Armen Stamboltsyan, stated in the court that he believes that the submitted petition is subject to satisfaction and he believed that the plaintiff party would not object to it. In his opinion, the means of securing the claim is not proportional.

“Even after the restoration of the allegedly violated rights, the signing of the mentioned lease agreement will not hinder the realization of their rights. Moreover, this would eliminate the problems associated with the institution of damages. In any case, depriving a legal entity of using the property is not very reasonable,” Karo Asatryan said.

Then the court asked Nerses Aghababyan how difficult it would be to ensure the execution of the final court act in case of signing a lease agreement, burdening the real estate with divisible and indivisible improvements.

The lawyer mentioned that the improvements are divisible, then they can be divided and no problem will arise. If they are inseparable, then it is the company’s risk. “We know that there is a court case and it would not be reasonable to spend significant amounts of money on that property, which may cause problems in the future.”

He also proposed to make changes in the petition, in addition to alienation, to prohibit the lease for a period longer than one year, so that the plaintiff side would be calmer.

Varazdat Asatryan noted that there are many civil-law transactions that can lead to certain consequences and burdening the property.

Referring to the change made in the petition regarding the lease of the property, he noted: “We are lawyers, we all know this tactic. After a certain period of time, if the parties do not take active actions, the lease contract becomes concluded for an indefinite period.”

Nerses Aghababyan countered: currently, the registered owner of the property at 14 Aivazovsky Street is “Arndane” LLC, and the company has all the legal grounds and expectations to use the property and make a profit.

The court considered the hearing of the petition to be closed, the decision on it will be sent to the participants of the trial.

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About 70 auctions have been announced for the sale of areas on 14 Aivazovsky address. In one of them (on 26 December, 2016), Ara Hakobyan, Director of “Kecharis Hotel” LLC, was declared the winner. On 9 January, 2017, the purchase and sale agreement was signed. However, later it became clear that Ara Hakobyan did not pay the cadastral value of the land, which hindered the registration of his ownership right to the property.

It should be noted that plaintiff Ara Hakobyan;s name is connected with  Mihran Poghosyan, a former member of the National Assembly, former Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer of the RA judicial acts, taking into account the fact that the 100% shareholder of “Kecharis Hotel” LLC is Eduard Harutyunyan, who occupied the position of director of “Best Realty” LLC Company. Still in 2019, according to the data reported by the Special Investigation Service, in 2011, Mihran Poghosyan founded Hopkinten Trading Incorporated and Sigtem Real Estate Incorporated in the Republic of Panama through foreign citizens, and in October of the same year, instead of foreign directors of companies with Poghosyan’s direct participation, close people of Mihran Poghosyan were appointed. Further, Mihran Poghosyan, , participated in the management of the aforementioned organizations registered in the offshore zone of Panama through proxies, as a result of which the latter founded other companies in Armenia, including “Best Realty” LLC.