Real estate taken over by the State from the estate of a legal entity. Action for the recovery of possession filed pursuant to the common law by the successors of the former shareholders. Lack of locus standi

DREPT CIVIL ŞI DREPT PROCESUAL CIVIL

Abstract

The examination of the action for the recovery of real estate possession based on the provisions of Articles 480-481 of the Civil Code of 1864 shall require the complaining party to observe the evidence requirements of common law. Hence, the claimants, as heirs of the former shareholders, are not automatically entitled to regain the ownership right over the goods which represented assets of the legal entity, taken over by the Romanian State pursuant to Law no. 119/1948, in the absence of the proof that the procedure of dissolution and winding-up of the company had been completed and, as a result of winding-up, the assets would have been included in the shareholders’ estate, all the more because the claimants’ authors, even if they owned a major share, they were not the only holders of shares. Since the legal entity represented a subject of law distinct from the persons who owned shares, as they had their own assets, the assignment of the ownership right from the company estate to the shareholders’ estate shall not be supposed, but, on the contrary, it must be proven. Since claimants did not prove that the ownership right over the company assets was assigned to them pursuant to common law, the action for the recovery of possession based on the provisions of the Civil Code (imposing restrictive conditions of proof related to the ownership right, compared to Law no. 10/2001) was filed by persons deprived of the capacity to sue.