Ara Hakobyan, Director of “Kecharis Hotel” LLC, filed a lawsuit against the bankruptcy manager Hovhannes Soghomyan, demanding that the auction of the real estate at 14 Aivazovsky Street be declared invalid, applying the consequences of the invalidity.
It should be noted that Iravaban.net has published an investigation about 70 auctions announced for the area at 14 Aivazovsky Street, in which the winners are interrelated with Mihran Poghosyan.
On 24 February, a regular hearing was held in the “Erebuni” seat of the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction, in which the Bankruptcy Administrator Hovhannes Soghomyan, who organized the property auction, “Arndane” LLC and “Armeconombank” JSC are the defendants, and Yerevan Municipality is involved as a third party.
“Arndane” lawyer Nerses Aghababyan submitted a counterclaim to the court, and “Armeconombank” representative submitted a petition.
“Arndane” claims that the corrections made by Notary Vanine Hovsepyan in the sales contract signed by the plaintiff on 09.01.2017 contradict the requirements of the RA Law on “Notaries Public” and are null and void.
It is noted that the first decision to suspend the state registration of the right in the cadastre was made on 16 January, 2017. The plaintiff submitted the next application to lift the suspension to the cadastre only on 15 October, 2021. Regarding the grounds for suspension, the Claimant did not take any action, including not correcting the defects in the sales contract of 09.01.2017. Only on 29 October, 2021, the plaintiff, through a notary, made handwritten changes to the real estate sales contract signed in 2017 and again submitted an application to the Cadastre in November 2021.
Clause 2 of the sales contract of 9 January, 2017, after the changes made by the notary, reads as follows: “2. The total area of the building from the mentioned real estate is 9278.95 /nine thousand two hundred and seventy-eight point ninety-five hundredths, the area of the plot is 45,000 (forty-five thousand) square meters.
The representative of the company claims that the notary added the sections marked with dark letters and highlighted, and also in the 3rd point of the contract, the notary made a change in the number of the ownership certificate, replacing the number 0337360 with the number 1442494.
According to “Arndane”, by adding such changes to the contract, the notary did not correct the linguistic or typographical error, but made an addition to the contract, which is inadmissible without the agreement of the parties to the contract. “Consequently, the corrections made by notary Vanine Hovsepyan in the sales contract of 09.01.2017 cannot be considered valid and have no legal force from the moment of their execution, that is, they are null and void.”
In addition, “Arndane” demands to declare the contract of sale of real estate notarized on 09.01.2017 not signed.
The representative of “Armeconombank” also requested to apply statute of limitations and on that basis rejected the claim presented by Ara Hakobyan. It is stated in the petition that a claim for the invalidity of the disputed transaction and the application of the consequences of its invalidity can be filed within 1 year, after the date when the claimant learnt or should have known about the circumstances that serve as a basis for declaring the transaction invalid. It is noted that the plaintiff had one year from 28 December, 2018 (when the auction was held), but did not submit the claim during that time.
The court, chaired by Judge Yerem Esoyan, decided to postpone the trial. The next court hearing was scheduled for 12 May.
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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.
