1. The subject of the dispute is the establishment of the fact of a man and a woman living as one family without registration of marriage and the recognition of ownership of property in the order of inheritance.
2. The court of cassation instance considered the case where the plaintiff requested to establish the fact of living with the deceased woman as one family without marriage for the purpose of obtaining inheritance. The appellate court refused to satisfy the claim, citing two reasons: firstly, the plaintiff appealed to an improper defendant (Kyiv City Council instead of the deceased’s son), and secondly, he did not prove the fact of living as one family. The Supreme Court agreed that the Kyiv City Council is an improper defendant, since the heir of the first очереди (line/priority) is the son of the deceased. At the same time, the Supreme Court emphasized that filing a claim against an improper defendant is an independent ground for rejecting the claim, and признал (recognized) as erroneous the conclusion of the appellate court about the failure to prove the claims, since the consideration of the case without the involvement of proper defendants makes it impossible to establish all the circumstances of the case.
3. The Supreme Court amended the decision of the appellate court, excluding from the reasoning part the conclusions about the failure to prove the claims, but left the decision to dismiss the claim unchanged, since the claim was filed against an improper defendant.
