OREANDA-NEWS. October 22, 2014. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a governmental bill "On amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine regarding certain inheritance issues".

Before the discussion of the draft law in Parliament, Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk reminded that the Ukrainian Government had directly engaged in the preparation of this document.

"The purpose of the bill is very simple: to provide the authority to execute notarial actions to rural councils. The Government supports this decision," said Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Justice Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Petrenko emphasized that the law allows farmers to claim inheritance in local bodies, abolishes mandatory assessment of property in case the latter is being inherited and eliminates corruption schemes of "assessment mafia".

Pavlo Petrenko explained that the law stipulates for providing the local self-government bodies with the authority to issue rights to inherited property and to register the rights to inherit immovable property by the residents of rural populated areas. At this the Ministry of Justice was commissioned to ensure training of specialists of local authorities, who deal with the provision of the abovementioned services.

"We provide these local authorities with substantial powers. This is serious responsibility, and they should use it. Each rural chairman, who cares about his community, will send an authorized person for training, the latter will receive a certificate and will provide such services," said Pavlo Petrenko.

At the same time, according to the Justice Minister, the existing system of state notaries, who dealt with inheritance issues, remains unchanged, "the system of public notaries will further operate. Citizens have the alternative right: they will either go to the rural council and register their rights of heirs to the inherited property, or go to a public notary office".