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Land, Boundaries & Geodesy

Unauthorised occupation of municipal land outside Tbilisi (Art. 55⁶)

Will I be fined the first time?

No. Part 1 of Article 55⁶ provides for a single sanction — a warning issued to the person. The fine of 2,000 lari arises only where the same act is committed repeatedly. At the first stage, therefore, the priority is to stop the use or to regularise a right to it.

How soon does a further act count as "repeated"?

The article does not set that period. It states only that the same act, committed repeatedly, is punished by a fine of 2,000 lari. The question is resolved on the file of the particular case and under the general provisions of the Code, which is one reason to keep the paperwork from the first warning.

What happens if the 2,000 lari fine goes unpaid?

Under the note to the article, non-payment within the period defined by Article 290(1) of the Code brings a surcharge equal to the fine itself — 2,000 lari of fine plus 2,000 lari of surcharge. If both amounts remain unpaid 30 days after the surcharge is assessed, a measure securing payment is applied in the manner established by Georgian legislation.

Does this article apply in Tbilisi?

No. Article 55⁶ expressly excludes the municipality of the city of Tbilisi; it concerns municipally owned plots on the territory of other municipalities. If the plot is in Tbilisi, classification under this article is wrong, and that is itself a ground to raise on appeal.

I have used the strip for years without anyone objecting. Does that help?

The article says nothing about long use creating a right, and it penalises use without a land-use right regardless of how long it has continued. What can help is a document — a lease or other agreement with the municipality — or evidence that the plot is not in municipal ownership at all. Length of use on its own is not an answer the article recognises.

5 min·22 Aug 2026

Who Article 55⁶ applies to

Article 55⁶ of the Administrative Offences Code of Georgia governs a narrow and precisely bounded situation: the unauthorised occupation of a land plot owned by a municipality on that municipality's territory, and/or its use without a land-use right. The exception is stated in the heading of the article itself — it does not extend to the territory of the municipality of the city of Tbilisi. Before the sanction matters at all, two things must be established: that the plot lies outside Tbilisi, and that it is in municipal ownership.

The article covers two acts and links them with "and/or": unauthorised occupation of the plot, and use of it without a land-use right. In practice this reaches situations such as fencing off municipal land, storing materials on it, setting up parking or a trading point, cultivating it, or simply absorbing it into an adjoining private plot. It is common for someone to have used such a strip of ground for years and to learn only when the protocol is drawn up that it belongs to the municipality.

The consolidated text of the article records an amendment made by Law No. 5297 of 26 November 2019. The two acts are joined by "and/or", which means both need not be established at once — unauthorised occupation of the plot is enough on its own, and so is use of it without a right. The article refers to the liable subject only as "the person" and draws no separate distinction between natural and legal persons.

What the sanction is

The article builds liability in two steps and does not reach for money on the first occasion:

  • Part 1 — unauthorised occupation and/or use without a right results in a warning being issued to the person;
  • Part 2 — the same act, committed repeatedly, results in a fine of 2,000 lari.

That structure has a practical consequence. The decision taken in the first case is the very fact that makes the second one expensive, so a warning is not a document to be filed away and forgotten: its content and its lawfulness deserve the same attention a fine would get. The article does not define the period within which a further act counts as a repeated one, and it does not provide a separate, still higher amount for a third or subsequent occasion.

Updated: 14 Oct 2026

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Unauthorised occupation of state-owned land (Art. 55⁵)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 deviation from the land use and protection project (Art. 54)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)