Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — Developers in Uzbekistan may be prohibited from advertising residential complexes under construction and apartments within them until a project declaration is registered in the Unified Information System.
The provision is included in a bill amending construction legislation, which was adopted by the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis in its third reading.
During consideration of the document on 10 November, a lawmaker asked whether the restriction would apply only to advertisements for individual apartments or also to promotion of entire residential complexes. Jamshid Mirzayev, a representative of the working group, explained that it would cover both.
This means developers will not be able to circumvent the requirement by advertising an entire complex instead of individual apartments. Companies will be allowed to promote a project and offer housing to buyers only after registering the project declaration in the Unified Information System. The document must contain information about the construction project.
During the bill’s revision, a provision imposing an additional fine of five basic calculation units for each square metre of unauthorised construction was also removed. The proposed penalty had previously been estimated at 2.2 million soums per square metre.
When presenting the bill for its second reading, lawmaker Odil Mamadaliev said the measure had been dropped following the adoption of a separate law on 28 September that tightened liability for violations in the construction sector. In particular, construction of multi-apartment buildings without a permit carries a fine of up to 450 basic calculation units, while repeated violations may result in criminal liability.
According to the lawmaker, the additional penalty could have been applied at the same rate to different types of violations, based on the area of the construction project. This created a risk of disproportionate punishment and duplication of existing administrative and criminal law provisions.
Another argument was the principle of “A warning for the first offence”, which is due to take effect in 2027. Mamadaliev said introducing an additional fine would have been inconsistent with this approach.
The final version of the bill does not include the additional penalty of five basic calculation units per square metre. Other liability measures for construction violations remain in place.
The bill, which also clarifies the powers of the National Committee for Sustainable Urbanisation and the Housing Market, was adopted by lawmakers in its second and third readings.
A total of 98 lawmakers voted in favour, 13 voted against and 10 did not take part in the vote. The document has been sent to the Senate for consideration.
