(27 January 2026 | Source: FBRC)
The FBRC editorial team recently published an appeal from the family of Adisha Kuzembayeva to the President regarding the impossibility of recovering a stolen land plot. Our editorial team has now received court documents confirming that the criminal court initially established fraud and ordered the return of the land to the owner, but the civil courts ultimately refused her claim, recognising the new owners as bona fide purchasers.
Let us try to unravel this complex case.
HOW THE PLOT WAS STOLEN
Adisha Kuzembayeva owned a land plot of over 1 hectare in the Yermensai microdistrict of Almaty, valued at 480 million tenge. In January 2023, notary Kazhan Umurzakov forged a power of attorney in her name without her being present. Using this power of attorney, one Sergei Ayupov sold the plot to Rustem Aushatev on 26 January 2023.
A month and a half later, on 7 March 2023, Rustem Aushatev sold the plot to businessmen Pavel Khvan and Vyacheslav Ten for 476 million tenge. The buyers transferred the money, completed the transaction with a notary, and registered their ownership rights.
On 26 November 2024, the District Court No. 2 of the Bostandyk District of Almaty found four individuals guilty of fraud, including notary Umurzakov and buyer Aushatev. In its verdict, the court explicitly stated that the land plot had been stolen from Kuzembayeva through deception and must be returned to her.
FIRST CIVIL COURT RULING
On 20 June 2025, the Bostandyk District Court granted Kuzembayeva's claim and declared both transactions invalid. The court referred to the final verdict, which had established the fact of fraud. On 11 August 2025, the appeals court upheld this decision.
However, 11 days later, on 22 August 2025, the same district court, upon a petition from Khvan's representative, granted a 3-month stay of execution of the ruling. As grounds, the court cited provisions allowing for a deferral of enforcement due to the debtor's difficult financial situation, although the representative of Khvan had only requested a deferral until the cassation review of the case and gave no other reasons.
INTERVENTION BY HIGHER COURTS
On 22 September 2025, the Chairman of the Cassation Court for Civil Cases submitted a motion to the Chairman of the Supreme Court to suspend the execution of the ruling. The basis was a petition from Khvan claiming that the courts had violated legal norms.
On 7 October 2025, the Chairman of the Supreme Court suspended the execution of the ruling. For the first time, the order included the phrase that enforcement "could significantly complicate reversing its execution in the event of judicial acts being reviewed in favour of the defendants". This implies that the heads of the higher courts assumed, even before the trial, that the review could favour the defendants.
On 5 November 2025, the Cassation Court overturned the decisions of the first instance and appeals courts and sent the case for a new trial to the Almaty City Court.
FINAL RULING
On 19 December 2025, the judicial panel of the Almaty City Court issued an unusual order.
The court declared invalid the first transaction of 26 January 2023 between Ayupov and Aushatev, agreeing that it was part of a criminal scheme. However, at the same time, the court refused to invalidate the second transaction of 7 March 2023 between Aushatev, Khvan, and Ten.
This creates a legal paradox. If the first transaction is invalid, then Aushatev was never the legal owner of the plot. Consequently, he could not sell what he did not own. Yet the court decided otherwise.
The key argument was the "gross negligence" of Kuzembayeva herself. The court pointed out that she obtained property right certificates on 14 and 21 February 2023, i.e., between the two transactions. Therefore, she should have been aware of the loss of her ownership rights before the entrepreneurs purchased the plot.
The court noted that Kuzembayeva only filed a police report on 2 August 2023, despite having obtained certificates via the eGov portal 30 times prior and seeing information about the plot's transfer. The panel considered that if the pensioner had promptly contacted the police and secured the attachment of the plot, the second transaction would have been impossible.
However, according to Kuzembayeva's side, there is witness testimony from an employee of JSC "National Information Technologies" (NIT) within the criminal case materials. According to this testimony, Kuzembayeva obtained certificates on 3 November 2022, 13 March 2023, and 2 August 2023. These are different dates from those cited by the court.
The case materials also mention another instance. On 15 December 2025, just four days before the ruling in Kuzembayeva's case, the same Almaty City Court heard a similar case. That case also involved two consecutive transactions concerning a stolen land plot. The court declared both transactions invalid and returned the plot to its original owner. Notably, this decision was made even before the criminal case was sent to court, i.e., without a conviction.
There is also another point. On 22 August 2025, the court granted a stay of execution of the ruling to Khvan and Ten upon their request. However, on 9 January 2026, the court refused a similar stay to Kuzembayeva, even though her representatives cited the same arguments.
This case effectively calls into question the very possibility of restoring violated property rights in instances where stolen property changes hands before the victim contacts law enforcement. Although the law formally allows for the recovery of stolen property even from a bona fide purchaser, in practice this mechanism has proven to be declaratory and lacking real effectiveness.