A court in Pavlodar has ruled in favor of a 75-year-old pensioner who had tended an abandoned dacha plot for more than ten years and sought to have the land registered as private property, infohub.kz reports.

According to NUR.KZ, citing the Supreme Court, the case was reported by the Telegram channel "Current News of the Judicial System." The ruling was issued by the specialized inter-district administrative court of Pavlodar Region.

The disputed plot in a gardening association (PKST) was left without an actual owner after the death of the original owner in 2003 and then after the death of one of the heirs in 2016. Until 2025, the land remained registered to the surviving heir, after which it was declared ownerless and transferred to municipal ownership.

Noticing the abandoned plot, the pensioner decided to restore it with the consent of the PKST. He cleared the area, regularly paid for water, grew crops, and conscientiously cared for the land for more than ten years.

When the man sought to register the plot as private property, the authorized body refused, citing the land's location in the sanitary protection zone (SPZ) of a local plant. The pensioner went to court.

After examining the circumstances, the court found inconsistencies in the authorized body's position. Sanitary rules do indeed prohibit the creation of new gardening associations within sanitary protection zones. However, the disputed dacha area has existed for more than 25 years and constitutes a long-established territory, not a new gardening association.

Neither the defendants nor the interested parties disputed the fact that the PKST had long existed on this territory. Furthermore, it was established that the authorized body had previously granted plots in this gardening association to other land users as private property.

Following the hearing, the court fully upheld the pensioner's claim. The authorized body was ordered to issue a favorable administrative act and grant the man the requested land plot as private property. The decision has entered into legal force.

"Now the pensioner will be able to continue working on his plot, preserving the results of many years of labor," the Supreme Court said.