How Former MP Gagik Mkheyan Seized Another Person's Garage

Former National Assembly member Gagik Mkheyan has managed to claim ownership of a garage belonging to another individual in the center of Yerevan. This transaction was facilitated either through negligence or intentional oversight by the Cadastre Committee and the Yerevan Municipality. The real owner of the garage has been going from one agency to another for months, knocking on the doors of law enforcement, writing letters to the Prime Minister, but has been unable to reclaim the garage that was taken from him in paperwork.

As reported in the investigative report by Hetq.am, the garage of Yerevan resident Ashot Baghdasaryan is located near the Writers' Union at the beginning of Baghramyan Avenue. It was passed down to him from his father, who obtained the garage in 1981 with permission from the Yerevan City Council's housing and maintenance department, through an exchange. After his father's death, in 2013, the garage was registered under Ashot Baghdasaryan's name.

In November 2019, Ashot learned that his garage was being sold by former National Assembly member Gagik Mkheyan, who was once affiliated with the Prosperous Armenia Party.

The dubious deal is registered in the Cadastre. In 2003, Gagik Mkheyan purchased a garage adjacent to Ashot Baghdasaryan's, just a few meters away. Mkheyan acquired that garage from another individual, and in 2013, his right to lease the land was registered in the Cadastre. The former MP failed to pay the lease for that 16.5 square meter garage properly in 2015, leading the Yerevan Municipality to take him to court and receive a ruling against him.

This garage was made of stone and reinforced concrete. Years earlier, by a court decision, the garage that belonged to Mkheyan and several others were demolished, and a three-story building now occupies the site. This means that the garage once owned by Mkheyan has long ceased to exist.

In February 2019, Gagik Mkheyan submitted a request to the Cadastre committee, asking for a correction in the documents for his non-existent garage in the Cadastre file. Cadastre employee Slavik Jamkotzyan took the cadastral code of the garage belonging to Ashot Baghdasaryan and placed it under the paperwork of the garage that once belonged to Gagik Mkheyan but no longer exists. As a result of this so-called “correction of error,” Ashot Baghdasaryan was deprived of his garage, and Gagik Mkheyan became its owner.

Based on the documentation regarding this “correction of error,” Mkheyan managed to obtain a decision signed by Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan for the extension of the land lease and the provision of an address. After receiving this decision from Hayk Marutyan, Mkheyan returned to the Cadastre and registered his ownership right over Ashot Baghdasaryan’s garage and his lease right over the land of the garage.

The once-owned and now non-existent garage of Gagik Mkheyan had a reinforced concrete base covering an area of 14.3 square meters and was made of stone construction, while Ashot Baghdasaryan's garage is made of iron and covers 16.5 square meters. Furthermore, the 'Zhiguli' belonging to Baghdasaryan's deceased father still remains inside the garage, covered in dust.

For more details, read on Hetq.am.