How to recover a contractual earnest payment without confusing it with an advance

When this guide applies

Use this guide if, after money was trans­ferred, the other party refused to enter into or perform the con­tract, the parties ended their arrange­ment, or a dispute arose about what the payment was. A typical Kyiv sce­nario is a payment toward a future pur­chase of an apart­ment, house, or other prop­er­ty, record­ed in a short receipt, cor­re­spon­dence with an in­ter­me­di­ary, and a bank trans­fer.

Do not start by de­mand­ing “double the amount.” First prepare a time­line: what con­tract the parties in­tend­ed to enter into or perform, what the payment secured, who had to take the next step and when, and how the refusal was doc­u­ment­ed. Use the earnest-payment refund cal­cu­la­tor to compare the arith­metic under dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios, but choose a sce­nario only after legal review.

Applicable deadline or procedure

Ar­ti­cles 546–548 and 570 of the Civil Code treat earnest money as a way to secure an oblig­a­tion. The trans­ac­tion se­cur­ing the oblig­a­tion must be in writing. If it is not es­tab­lished that the amount trans­ferred is earnest money, the law treats it as an advance; the payment’s label alone does not ensure that Article 571 applies.

The con­se­quence depends on why the con­tract was not per­formed. If the party that paid the earnest money is re­spon­si­ble, the re­cip­i­ent keeps it. If the re­cip­i­ent is re­spon­si­ble, they return the earnest payment and pay an ad­di­tion­al equal amount. The earnest payment is re­turned if the oblig­a­tion ends before per­for­mance begins or per­for­mance becomes im­pos­si­ble.

Damages are a sep­a­rate part of the claim. Under the general rule in Article 571, the party at fault com­pen­sates only the amount by which the damages exceed the earnest payment, unless the con­tract pro­vides oth­er­wise. Do not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly add a fine, penalty, or in­ter­est: each item needs its own legal basis and cal­cu­la­tion.

Steps to take

Collect the con­tract, ap­pen­dices, receipt, banking records, and cor­re­spon­dence in one file. Mark where the parties agreed on the subject matter, price, dead­line, and func­tion of the payment. For real estate, sep­a­rate­ly check the form of the pre­lim­i­nary and main con­tracts under Ar­ti­cles 635 and 657 of the Civil Code.

Next, doc­u­ment in writing your readi­ness to perform the arrange­ment or, de­pend­ing on the sit­u­a­tion, the parties’ agreed ter­mi­na­tion. Propose a spe­cif­ic re­sponse and re­pay­ment dead­line. For a re­cip­i­ent in Kyiv, keep not only the demand itself but also the en­clo­sure list, postal track­ing, elec­tron­ic sig­na­ture, or other proof of de­liv­ery.

Sep­a­rate the basic con­se­quence of the earnest payment from damages in your cal­cu­la­tion. For each expense, iden­ti­fy the sup­port­ing doc­u­ment, date, con­nec­tion to the breach, and why it could not rea­son­ably have been avoided. If the payment may be an advance, state an al­ter­na­tive claim without as­sert­ing that a double amount is au­to­mat­i­cal­ly owed.

Before filing in court, check the proper de­fen­dant, their address, any con­trac­tu­al venue clause, and the general rules of the Civil Pro­ce­dure Code. For a claim related to real estate in Kyiv Oblast, do not de­ter­mine the court solely from the claimant’s place of res­i­dence: the nature of the claim may affect venue.

What to check before filing

Rec­on­cile the amount in the con­tract, receipt, and bank state­ment down to the small­est unit. If the payment was made in several in­stal­ments, do not treat the entire flow of funds as one earnest payment without an­a­lyz­ing the purpose of each part. For a foreign-cur­ren­cy link, apply Ar­ti­cles 524 and 533 of the Civil Code to­geth­er with the con­tract term; this sce­nario is not covered by a simple cal­cu­la­tor.

Check whether actual per­for­mance has begun, whether the oblig­a­tion has in fact ended, and who created the ob­sta­cle. The fact that the ex­pect­ed trans­ac­tion did not take place does not by itself prove that the re­cip­i­ent or payer is re­spon­si­ble. Also review terms on changes to damages, penal­ties, set-off, and notices.

The lim­i­ta­tion period is not cal­cu­lat­ed from an ar­bi­trar­i­ly se­lect­ed trans­fer date. It depends on when the person learned or could have learned of the vi­o­la­tion. The lim­i­ta­tion-period cal­cu­la­tor can help you check the general time­frame, but in­ter­rup­tion, sus­pen­sion, and special rules must be as­sessed against the doc­u­ments.

If the home pur­chase went ahead and the issue con­cerns the paid pension levy, use the guide to ex­emp­tion from or refund of the levy and the pension levy cal­cu­la­tor. This is a sep­a­rate pro­ce­dure from a claim against the seller to recover earnest money.

When to consult a lawyer

Legal review is es­pe­cial­ly useful when there is only a receipt, an in­ter­me­di­ary arranged the deal, part of the payment was in cash, the con­tract con­cerns real estate, or the parties give dif­fer­ent ac­counts of why one side refused. The same applies to a claim for sub­stan­tial damages, a foreign-cur­ren­cy link, or a con­cur­rent penalty.

For a dispute in Kyiv or Kyiv Oblast, a lawyer can dis­tin­guish the primary and al­ter­na­tive legal char­ac­ter­i­za­tions of the payment, check venue, build an ev­i­dence time­line, and align the amount re­quest­ed in court with the doc­u­ments. That matters more than me­chan­i­cal­ly dou­bling the trans­fer.