Residential education: the "Valley effect" proved ineffective
Despite the huge public outcry over the court's decisions regarding Larisa Dolina's apartment and reports about the popularity of a new scheme for terminating transactions, judicial practice statistics show the opposite, Izvestia found out. The number of lawsuits for invalidation of transactions due to the fact that the seller of the apartment was unaware of what was happening and was allegedly under the influence of fraudsters turned out to be one and a half times less than last year. See our article about how judicial practice developed and why the "Valley effect" turned out to be ineffective.
How many cases have the courts considered
The "Valley Effect" has become entrenched as a symbol of a risky secondary market scenario: a seller who has become a victim of telephone scams disputes the sale of housing and seeks the return of the apartment, while the buyer faces the threat of losing both the object and the money. However, as reported to Izvestia by the Analytical research center. Business. Pravo", the macro-effect of the "Valley case" on the secondary market turned out to be limited and statistically insignificant.
"In 2025, the secondary housing market in Russia found itself in a situation of rare institutional stress, when a short-term information and legal shock was superimposed on the dynamics of rates, public expectations and seasonal cyclical transactions," the company's research says. "In the fall of 2025, the Valley effect became just such a signal: it changed the subjective assessment of risk among buyers and launched a chain of defensive reactions from realtors, lawyers and sellers themselves."
For example, in Moscow in August 2025, 10.6 thousand transactions were registered on the secondary market, which is 6.9% less than in July and 4.7% lower than in August 2024. Already in September, the market recovered to 11.9 thousand transactions. October was the most significant month: 13.97 thousand transactions — the most since the beginning of the year, an increase of 16.6% compared to September and a slight increase compared to October last year.
The "Valley effect" manifested itself more in the form of a brief pause or buyer caution than in a breakdown in demand, experts say. "If the legal shock were the dominant factor, we would expect a consistent decline in transaction volume over several months."
Currently, the number of 3,118 cases of contesting registered rights to real estate regularly appears in the media, with reference to the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation for 2024. At the same time, we are talking about all cases for various reasons.
But those that are directly related to the "vice of the will", that is, fraud, are many times less. In total, there were 1,655 lawsuits under the influence of deception in 2024, and 1,120 in 11 months of 2025 for five articles dealing, for example, with imaginary and fake transactions, as well as transactions made in a state that precludes understanding of their meaning. In particular, Larisa Dolina contested the purchase and sale transaction under Article 178 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation on "significant error." 382 lawsuits were filed against it in 2024, and 299 in 2025.
The dynamics of the number of claims for invalidation of transactions is characterized by a "sharp decrease" in 2025, analysts emphasize. There are about a third fewer of them. And the highest values are shown by lawsuits under articles about imaginary (when the parties pretend to conclude a contract, but do not intend to fulfill it) and fake (one transaction is used to cover up the other) transactions.
Cases in which claims are denied have become more frequent. The main reasons for the refusals are the lack of evidence of willpower and avoidance of expertise, the experts added.
How has customer behavior changed?
The concentration of disputes over the recognition of transactions as invalid is observed in economically active regions, the analysts added. The leaders in the total number of cases were: Moscow (18 cases), Moscow (24 cases) and Sverdlovsk (14 cases) regions. At the same time, for example, in the Bryansk, Kursk, Novgorod, Pskov regions, as well as in Kalmykia, Komi, Mordovia, and Chuvashia, the number of such disputes does not exceed one to three per year.
But such cases always cause a significant public outcry, as a result of which they remain in the information field for a long time. So, in recent days, the media has been spreading the story of how in Sochi the former owner regained her apartment after the sale, and the buyer left her without electricity. The couple bought a house in Sochi in July of this year. The apartment has been on sale for three months, the cost is 6.5 million rubles. We got acquainted with the owner, she provided all the information and quickly checked out after the transaction. However, she refused to move out afterwards. The pensioner filed a lawsuit, where she called herself a victim of fraud. The transaction was declared invalid.
There is a well-known case in Moscow, where a mother and her disabled daughter were left without an apartment due to the "Valley effect." At first, the retired sellers said they were emigrating to Canada, after which they decided to cancel the deal and refused to leave their homes.
And in the Urals, a married couple was deprived of an apartment, as the previous owner was on a binge when selling. The couple bought an apartment in December 2023 from a realtor, renovated it and rented it out. We checked all the documents before the transaction and paid through the bank. However, the owner changed his mind and said that he had been drinking since the age of 19, and after his mother's death he went on a binge. The court sided with the former owner.
The constant rotation of such news has changed the behavior of buyers. If the seller is an elderly owner, the buyer often begins to fear that he did not realize the significance of the actions or acted under pressure, analysts say. Thus, the age of the owner has become a market marker of risk, which affects the speed of the transaction, the verification format and the price.
For example, in the fall of 2025, buyers began to demand extended evidence of the seller's legal capacity and voluntary actions more often. As a result, the time for the preparation and maintenance of contracts has increased, the practice of inviting specialist doctors has spread, people have begun to contact notaries more often and order specialized legal checks. The cost of the transaction has also increased: previously, the cost of inspections was 3-4% of the price, but now this figure has reached 4-6%.
Demand for title insurance is also growing, said Artyom Iskra, Managing Director of Renaissance Insurance. If the court revokes the client's ownership right, the company compensates for his financial losses.
"If such policies were rare in the non—pharmacy segment before September, then the number of requests has almost quadrupled over the past two months," he said. — The main driver is the frequent and actively publicized cases in which apartment buyers were deprived of their property rights through the courts. At the same time, to date, the company has claimed several losses on title insurance, which are under judicial review.
When will the real estate market return to normal
Statistics record the main legal conclusion: even with an increase in the number of applications challenging transactions in 2024, there are more refusals than satisfactions, the director of the Analytica research center told Izvestia. Business. Pravo" by Venera Shaidullina. And in 2025, there are no signs of an explosive expansion of such practices.
"This directly weakens the panic scenario, where the high—profile case allegedly became a template for mass housing returns," she stressed.
Susana Kirakosyan, an expert at the research center and head of the subcommittee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation on business development in the field of residential real estate management, added that the observed dynamics remains significantly below the level that would allow us to talk about an increase of 3,000 cases.
"At the same time, we cannot ignore a narrower segment of cases where the factor of telephone fraud is embedded in the seller's delusion," the expert noted. — It is this sub-array that creates maximum uncertainty for buyers and explains the nervousness of the market.
The "Valley effect" did not fundamentally change the market and did not cause a big wave of concerns, Alla Georgieva, a civil lawyer, agreed with the authors of the study.
"The real estate market is currently very unstable," she said. — And the contesting of transactions has been going on for a long time, and the articles of the Civil Code have been applied before. Security standards have simply increased now.
According to her, buyers have become more active in inviting specialists who evaluate the understanding of the seller's actions. Previously, this was not used so often, only with very elderly people.
"Anyone can become a wingman, so everyone is being checked," the lawyer added. — In any case, it is necessary to adjust the legislation, make changes, and also wait for the decision of the plenum of the Supreme Court, which will clarify who the bona fide buyer is.
Konstantin Trapaidze, Chairman of the bar Association "Your Legal Attorney", disagreed with the findings of the study. In his opinion, the number of lawsuits is still growing.
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