The land is used for market gardening, in an area called Pilpaküla, near to Maardu but within Jõelähtme Rural Municipality's jurisdiction (see map above).

The area is around a kilometer across and consists of allotments, greenhouses and sheds, which have accumulated over the past 40 years.

Some sturdier houses which reportedly lack building permits are also present.

The cooperative that administers the area, the Kadakas Köögiviljaaianduse ühistu, neither prepared a detailed plan nor approached the municipality in respect of the sale, however, and went directly to a notary, who duly filed it with the land register administered by the Land Board (Maa-amet).

Jõelähtme Municipal Elder Andrus Umboja (Reform) said: "We found out more or less by accident that the land deals had been made."

"We approached a notary in order to reverse the transactions, which were illegal from the outset, as the intent of the law has not been fulfilled here," Umboja went on.

At the start of last year, three plots of land owned by the Kadakas cooperative (Kadakas means juniper in Estonian – ed.) were divided into around 100 hypothetical allotments, and granted to cooperative members in joint ownership.

Sales to 150 people, 60 of whom are third-country citizens

The change affected nearly 150 people, given that many plots were acquired by both an individual and their partner.

Of these, 60 were foreign citizens, primarily of the Russian Federation so far as their passports went, however. Jõelähtme municipality discovered the changes after they were made in the real estate register, last summer.

The municipality approached the land registry itself on the matter but to no avail.

Tallinn notary office Kaata Kartau has conceded that a citizen of a third country must obtain permission from a municipality when wanting to acquire gardening or agricultural land. At the same time, Kaata Kartau noted that the acquisition of a hypothetical portion only equates to actual acquisition in certain cases.

A spokesperson for the notary said: "It can be concluded that if a citizen of a third country acquires only a notional plot of real estate, then local government permission is not in fact required."

Kadakas cooperative board member Stepan Romanov claims the municipality ought to be satisfied with the notary's explanation, but is not. "They just keep on going," he said.

According to Andrus Umboja, the municipality has no choice here; the legislature, ie. the Riigkogu, wants to limit the acquisition of agricultural land by citizens of third countries in any case, he said.

Whether this was by the "real" or co-ownership route was immaterial, he added.

Municipality sought recommendations from the state

The municipality has asked for advice from several ministries he went on, adding that "they agree with us that this is not right and that it should be challenged."

With that in mind, the Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture has pledged to pay the municipality's court fees where necessary.

Umboja said the suit is being prepared, with the aim of ownership reverting to the cooperative itself.

The municipality has met with the new land owners several times he said, while about 10 of the 60 new owners have agreed to forgo their plot, ie. for it to revert to the cooperative – they will still be able to cultivate it - and without going to court. Negotiations with the remainder have not been successful as yet.

The ministries have confirmed in their responses that the matter will be under discussion when a bill to amend the law on narrowing the acquisition of immovable property gets drafted – this bill is set to reach its coordination round no later than June.

It was Jõelähtme Rural Municipality that decided to sell the land to gardening cooperatives and thus the local residents who cultivate them; the sale totaled €3 million.

The citizenship issue was already under discussion at the time; a council session in August 2022 saw claims made by some deputies that no one should be discriminated against on the basis of nationality, while others said a solution might be for the potential buyers to obtain Estonian citizenship (which means forgoing any other citizenship they have) first.

The state was not over-enamored with the situation, Umboja, who suggested turning to the interior ministry and even the Internal Security Service (ISS) for advice, recalled.

Question of national security

The state has not changed that line either; earlier on this month, Kristian Pärt, the relevant interior ministry departmental director, reminded Jõelahtme Rural Municipality of the foundations of Estonia's security policy, including that relating to the increased aggressiveness of authoritarian regimes.

Local governments taking security issues in mind when third country nationals congregate in one region, regardless of how anodyne the activity might appear, is a reasonable step, Pärt had written.

Stepan Romanov says he fails to understand how allotment gardeners can prove a threat to national security, saying that the new plot owners are not interested in any war.

Market gardening had also seen somewhat of a boon during the Covid pandemic.

Romanov said that everything had been done regarding the sale in accordance with the law, and the group had sought legal advice in the process.

Andrus Umboja said that he hoped negotiations between the new plot owners, the cooperative and the municipality would prove fruitful, and that the municipality could avoid costly court proceedings.

Local government reforms several years ago had included putting in place an obligation to assess foreign citizens' land transactions, including those relating to national security – a task which Umboja said was beyond municipalities' scope.

In this regard, we have also appealed to the state with the wish that these legal acts be corrected, he added.

At the same time, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine had changed things; the municipality no longer felt it right to consent to land sales to foreign residents after that, Umboja said.

The sale process involved the cooperatives first preparing a detailed plan, after which a strip of land was apportioned to each member in line with how much they had contributed to the joint purchase.

Stepan Romanov said people had paid up but had not received their land.

The next step will be for a Kadakas cooperative meeting, he added – the cooperative is not interested in going to court either, he said.

One possible solution, Stepanov went on, might be for every owner who is a Russian citizen to find an Estonian citizen whom they trust and in whose name the share can be held.

Municipal Elder Umboja, however, said that no new deal can be formalized after an illegal one, ie. the current situation. The land has to go back to the cooperative before it can go to a new owner, he said.

Of this, Romanov said: "This would prove a long and very difficult road. Why can't there be another way? Why isn't the second [transfer to an Estonian citizen] option satisfactory?"

The invasion of Ukraine has brought to light the status of citizens of the Russian Federation and of Belarus who are ordinarily resident in Estonia. Other issues include those relating to voting rights in local elections and the right to bear firearms.

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