Unauthorised deviation from the land use and protection project (Art. 54)

How much is the fine under Article 54?

The article provides for a fine of 300 to 500 lari. The exact figure is set somewhere in that band, and the article itself lists no criteria for choosing it. No other sanction is provided for in this provision.

I am the owner but a contractor did the work. Am I the one who pays?

Liability follows the person who carried out the work departing from the project, or on whose instruction it was carried out. If a contractor or lessee performed it, that has to be shown with documents — the contract, the acceptance record, the correspondence — rather than asserted at the hearing.

Can the decision be appealed?

Yes. The body to appeal to and the period for doing so are stated on the decision itself; Article 54 does not set them. Read that part of the document the day it arrives and note the date in writing: letting the period lapse becomes a separate problem on top of the original one.

If I restore the plot to its previous condition, does the fine go away?

Article 54 provides no such ground, so restoration does not automatically remove liability. It is still worth putting before the decision-maker: the sanction is a range, so the question of the amount remains open even where the offence itself is not in dispute.

The protocol describes work I never carried out. What now?

Put the discrepancy in writing as early as possible and support it with material — photographs, work logs, the part of the project that covers the disputed volume. An objection made orally and never entered into the file tends to disappear by the time the case is examined.

4 min·22 Aug 2026

What deviating from the project actually means

A land use and protection project is the approved document that sets out how a particular plot is to be worked and what measures are to be taken to protect the land itself. Article 54 of the Georgian Administrative Offences Code does not punish the work. It punishes the gap between the approved document and what was actually done, in circumstances where no appropriate permission was obtained for that difference. Three elements have to line up before the article applies: an approved project exists, the work departs from it, and no permission covers the departure. Remove any one of the three and the article does not bite.

Liability attaches to the person who carried out the work, or on whose instruction it was carried out. In practice that may be the owner of the plot, a lessee or other user, or a contractor engaged to perform construction, earthmoving or land reclamation work. If your plot was leased out and somebody else did the work, that is a material fact, but a statement at the hearing will rarely carry it on its own. A contract, an acceptance record or correspondence showing who actually performed the work is what makes the point stand.

What Article 54 provides

The wording of Article 54 is short and it carries a single sanction. Deviating from the land use and protection project without appropriate permission results in a fine of 300 to 500 lari. The article contains nothing else: no warning, no suspension of activity, no confiscation of property, and no separate heavier rule for a repeated occurrence of the same conduct.

lower limit of the fine — 300 lari;
upper limit of the fine — 500 lari;
the article states no criteria for choosing a figure between those two limits;
the article does not deal separately with repeat commission of the same offence.

The fact that the sanction is a range rather than a fixed sum has a practical consequence for how the case is argued. Two distinct questions are in play: whether the offence occurred at all, and, if it did, where in the 300 to 500 lari band the amount should sit. They are worth putting separately, because losing the first does not mean you have nothing left to say about the second.

Updated: 14 Oct 2026

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Unauthorised occupation of state-owned land (Art. 55⁵)Unauthorised occupation of municipal land outside Tbilisi (Art. 55⁶)Breach of the rules on topographic, geodetic and cartographic activity (Art. 177⁸)Damaging or destroying a state geodetic point (Art. 177⁹)Unauthorised occupation of forest or protected area land (Art. 49)Failure to formalise the documents for use of state non-agricultural land (Art. 51³)Failure to return temporarily occupied land or restore it to usable condition (Art. 53)Unauthorised use of a water body (Art. 55)Unauthorised occupation of a land plot (Art. 55²)Removing and moving the fertile soil layer without a permit (Art. 51²)Using a land plot for a purpose other than its designated one (Art. 53²)Transferring a state land plot to another land user in breach of the rules (Art. 53³)Building a facility that harms the condition of the land (Art. 55¹)