On the Content of the Concepts of “Allowable Use” and “Permitted Use” in Russian Land Law

The article studies the content of the concepts of «allowable use» and «permitted use». The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the current land law does not define the content of these concepts. The consequence of this is the existence of different positions on the definition of their content, which does not contribute to the proper application of the land law and related laws. The authors analyze land and forestry legislation, examine approaches to defining these concepts that have been developed in specialist literature and judicial practice, and offer their opinion on the content and relation of the concepts under study. Comparing the provisions of the Land Code of the Russian Federation, the authors conclude that the allowable use of land should be understood as «what the land is intended for and what it can be used for». It is noted that when determining the allowable use, we are not talking about specific land plots as objects of land and property relations. In addition, it is noted that the term «permitted use» cannot be applied in general to lands (land) as an object of land relations and is applied only to specific land plots, which is a significant difference between the concepts of «allowable use» and «permitted use». The authors also draw attention to the problem of applying the discussed legal concepts to forestry funds and land plots with forests which do not fall into the category of forestry funds, which is primarily due to the different scope of these concepts in the Land Code of the Russian Federation and the Forest Code of the Russian Federation.