How to avoid or recover the 1% pension fee on a home purchase

When this is needed

This guide is useful at two points: before no­ta­riz­ing a home pur­chase, if the buyer wants to law­ful­ly avoid paying 1%, or after the trans­ac­tion, if the fee has already been trans­ferred and there may be grounds for a refund. First check the amount and ap­plic­a­ble branch with the pension fee checker, then work through the doc­u­ments.

The ex­emp­tion does not cover every “first real estate” pur­chase. It applies to a citizen buying housing for the first time or to a citizen buying housing while on the housing reg­is­ter. A first plot of land or non-res­i­den­tial premis­es does not become a first home pur­chase because of its label.

Do not confuse the current trans­ac­tion with the buyer’s history. A gift or in­her­i­tance is not the current taxable sale and pur­chase, but housing ac­quired earlier that way matters when de­cid­ing whether today’s pur­chase is truly the first.

Applicable time limit or procedure

As a general rule, a real estate buyer pays 1% of the value stated in the sale agree­ment. For an agree­ment worth UAH 2,650,000, the base fee is UAH 26,500. This is not an es­ti­mate of the seller’s taxes, the net trans­ac­tion value or all no­tar­i­al costs; it is only the buyer’s sep­a­rate pension fee.

Pro­ce­dure No. 1740 pro­vides ex­cep­tions for cit­i­zens buying housing for the first time and cit­i­zens on the housing reg­is­ter who are buying housing. The ex­cep­tion must be proven with doc­u­ments. If all you have is an oral state­ment, an in­com­plete extract or un­cer­tain­ty about par­tic­i­pa­tion in pri­va­ti­za­tion, the safe con­clu­sion is “needs review,” not “UAH 0 due.”

After payment, the route changes. The buyer applies to the com­pe­tent ter­ri­to­r­i­al Pension Fund office. If the office con­firms an ex­ces­sive or mis­tak­en credit, it pre­pares a sub­mis­sion under Pro­ce­dure No. 787 and the Trea­sury process­es the refund. Neither el­i­gi­bil­i­ty nor the ap­pli­ca­tion alone sup­ports a promise of a spe­cif­ic payment date.

Steps to take

Before a trans­ac­tion in Lviv, prepare a per­son­al housing chronol­o­gy. Include pur­chas­es, child­hood pri­va­ti­za­tion, in­her­i­tance, gifted shares and rights ac­quired as part of marital prop­er­ty. If the buyer pre­vi­ous­ly lived in a dis­trict town or village in the region, check­ing only a Lviv address will miss local pri­va­ti­za­tion and archive records.

Request full in­for­ma­tion from the State Reg­is­ter of Rights in Rem, in­clud­ing its archive data. Sep­a­rate­ly collect proper records showing that housing vouch­ers were not used or that no pri­va­ti­za­tion ac­qui­si­tion took place. Do not assume that one in­sti­tu­tion always issues such a cer­tifi­cate: the proper route depends on the time, place and doc­u­men­tary history.

If el­i­gi­bil­i­ty is based on the housing reg­is­ter, obtain current con­fir­ma­tion of that status. Give the notary the com­plete package before the agree­ment is no­ta­rized, rather than a few screen­shots or your own list of answers. Ask in advance which spe­cif­ic ev­i­dence is missing so you are not re­solv­ing it on the set­tle­ment date.

If the 1% fee has already been paid, prepare an ap­pli­ca­tion to the com­pe­tent Pension Fund office, payment record, no­ta­rized agree­ment, pass­port or ID, tax­pay­er number, bank details and ev­i­dence for the ex­emp­tion. Check the current office, sub­mis­sion channel and re­quire­ments on the Pension Fund’s of­fi­cial website; this page de­lib­er­ate­ly does not repeat change­able ad­dress­es or re­cep­tion hours.

Keep a copy of the ap­pli­ca­tion and proof of sub­mis­sion. If the Pension Fund asks for more doc­u­ments or refuses, request a clear written ex­pla­na­tion. It will show whether the issue is an in­com­plete package, the wrong re­cip­i­ent or the legal as­sess­ment of prior ac­qui­si­tion.

What to check before filing

Match the full name, tax­pay­er number, pre­vi­ous sur­names and ad­dress­es across all records. For an apart­ment in Lviv or a house in the region, the dif­fer­ence between “el­i­gi­bil­i­ty con­firmed” and “one com­mu­ni­ty not checked” can mean tens of thou­sands of hryv­nias. A short extract of current rights is in­suf­fi­cient when the prior housing history relates to another com­mu­ni­ty.

Make sure the records cover pri­va­ti­za­tion history. Res­i­dence reg­is­tra­tion in an apart­ment is not the same as own­er­ship, but the lack of a current reg­istry entry does not prove that a share was never reg­is­tered earlier. Do not draw a con­clu­sion from one fact alone.

For a refund ap­pli­ca­tion, match the payment date, amount and details to the agree­ment. Add the bank account for the refund and clearly state the basis: first home pur­chase or con­firmed housing-reg­is­ter status. If these grounds are mixed to­geth­er, it will be harder for the au­thor­i­ty to un­der­stand the ev­i­dence package.

Check ter­ri­to­r­i­al com­pe­tence sep­a­rate­ly. The place where the agree­ment was no­ta­rized in Lviv, the buyer’s address, the home’s lo­ca­tion in the region and the au­thor­i­ty con­trol­ling the revenue may point to dif­fer­ent filing as­sump­tions. Use the current of­fi­cial Pension Fund route, not an old forum address.

When to consult a lawyer

A review is es­pe­cial­ly useful if the buyer moved to Lviv from another com­mu­ni­ty, changed their surname, was reg­is­tered in a pri­va­tized home, in­her­it­ed prop­er­ty or sees dif­fer­ent in­for­ma­tion in the current reg­is­ter and a local archive. A lawyer can map missing ev­i­dence before the no­tar­i­al date, while there is still time to avoid a dis­put­ed payment.

After payment, help is useful if the com­pe­tent Pension Fund office is unclear, the payment record has in­cor­rect details, the agree­ment and payment amounts differ or the au­thor­i­ty con­sid­ers the package in­com­plete. The aim is to iden­ti­fy the proper basis, re­cip­i­ent, at­tach­ments and re­sponse to a written reply, not to promise a refund.

For a home in Lviv or the region, begin with a map of com­mu­ni­ties, ad­dress­es and ac­qui­si­tion methods, not only the 1% amount. This helps iden­ti­fy which local and reg­istry records are still needed and whether an ex­emp­tion or refund is gen­uine­ly avail­able. That helps dis­tin­guish a real ex­emp­tion from a pur­chase for which the general rate was cor­rect­ly paid.