Supreme Court Annuls Lower Courts’ Judgements on the Subject of Toleration Payments

The Supreme Court has annulled judgments from courts of first and second instance, in which Elering was obliged to pay significantly higher toleration payments in favour of the landowner.

The Supreme Court has sent the case back to the court of first instance, and the process of the argument will continue in proceedings on petition, as Elering had applied for. The Supreme Court also agreed that Elering’s position was unreasonably not taken into consideration in the courts of first and second instance.

In the judgment handed down on Wednesday, the bench of The Supreme Court drew the legislature’s attention to the fact that it has already been almost three years since the acts regulating the size of the toleration payments for technical facilities were annulled. However, not having a respective methodology does not mean that the court would be unable to decree a toleration payment at a fair rate.

“In light of the Supreme Court’s judgment, there is an urgent need to create a single basis for toleration payments, as the given judgement can create an unreasonable situation where the size of the toleration payment should be agreed on separately or argued in court with every single property owner. This would be a very expensive solution for society and will not be effective in any way,” commented the chairman of the board, Taavi Veskimägi.

Elering has no intention of avoiding the payment of toleration payments. Elering is prepared to pay the intended toleration payment once it has been determined on the basis of a methodology that is in accordance with the constitution.

The power network administered by Elering is situated over 17,000 properties. In addition to Elering, the same problem also affects a significant number of other network companies as well as hundreds of thousands of properties.

The recent judgment of the Supreme Court concerns a case in which the owner of several plots of land in the Haabersti district of Tallinn filed a claim against Elering in 2012 asking for notably higher compensation every year in toleration of the technical network and facilities as compared to the compensation payments that had been paid previously.