The case of Larisa Dolina has influenced the caution of buyers of secondary housing

The case of People's Artist of Russia Larisa Dolina greatly influenced the real estate market, said the founder of the Lyubimova Real Estate real estate agency, real estate market expert Sofia Lyubimova. In a conversation with Lenta.ru, she emphasized that after this story, many buyers saw for the first time that they could buy an apartment, get everything official and still end up in court.

“That is why people have become even more wary of buying secondary housing. This is especially true for apartments sold by elderly owners. Buyers began to ask more questions: why is a person selling an apartment? Where is he going to move? What will be done with the money after the sale? Did he make the decision himself or was someone rushing him? Does he even understand what’s going on?” - Lyubimova said.

According to the expert, if earlier when checking an apartment, the main attention was paid to documents, an extract from the Unified State Register, the history of the apartment, owners and debts, today this is no longer enough. Now you need to look at the seller himself and the situation around him.

“For example, if an elderly person is selling his only apartment, is in a hurry, is ready to significantly reduce the price and at the same time cannot properly explain where he is moving, this is already a reason to stop and figure it out, since one of the main problems of modern fraud is that a person can be forced to sell an apartment with his own hands. Scammers may call him for weeks, introduce themselves as employees of a bank or law enforcement agency, intimidate him and convince him that the apartment urgently needs to be sold in order to supposedly “save money.” As a result, the owner himself comes to the deal, signs the contract himself and outwardly looks like he is acting voluntarily,” Lyubimova noted.

According to the expert, it cannot be said that after the Dolina case there was less fraud; now the market has begun to better understand the scale of this problem. Fraudsters have not disappeared; they are changing their schemes and becoming more creative. And buyers, realtors, banks and lawyers have become more attentive to such transactions.

However, there is another problem: after such high-profile stories, some buyers begin to fear apartments sold by elderly people.

The work of a professional realtor and lawyer is especially important here, who will ask uncomfortable questions, check the history of the apartment, find out the reason for the sale, and also see if there are any oddities in the behavior of the seller.

“The main result of the Dolina case is that it did not stop fraud, but made the market take security much more seriously. A good realtor should check not only the apartment, he should understand the entire history of the transaction,” added Lyubimova.