4.  The applicant was born in 1945 and lives in Taganrog. 5.  In 1978 the applicant and her sister inherited a house. 6.  In 2001 the applicant had a civil dispute with her sister regarding division of the house. On 17 January 2001 the Taganrog Town Court determined that the sisters had equal shares in respect of the inherited property. 7.  On 29 May 2002 the Taganrog Town Court factually determined the equal shares of the house, as well as the way of its sharing. On 31 July 2002 the Rostov Regional Court upheld this judgment. 8.  On an unspecified date the applicant’s sister lodged a separate claim, requesting the court to acknowledge her property right to the corridor and the kitchen in the house, referring to the fact that she had invested in their reconstruction in 1989 and built some attachments to the house. 9.  On 17 October 2003 the Taganrog Town Court held that the attachments to the house belonged to the applicant’s sister because she had built them after the inheritance. The court increased the share of the applicant’s sister in the property up to 64/100 and reduced the applicant’s part to 36/100. On 26 November 2003 the Rostov Regional Court upheld this judgment. 10.  On 22 October 2004 the Taganrog Town Court on request of the applicant’s sister held that the judgment of 17 October 2003 established “new circumstances”, i.e. that the attachments in the house had been built by the applicant’s sister. Thus the court quashed the judgment of 29 May 2002 and re-opened the case on account of the “newly-discovered circumstances which were not and could not have been known at the moment of delivering the judgment of 29 May 2002”. 11.  The proceedings resumed, but on 8 February 2005 the applicant withdrew her claim and the proceedings were terminated. 12.  In March 2005 the applicant’s sister again filed an action seeking to divide their property in kind. 13.  On 10 October 2006 the Taganrog Town Court granted her claims. The house was divided in two parts and the parties were ordered to pay dividing costs. The court rendered the judgment in the absence of the applicant and her representative on the ground that she failed to appear without any reasons despite her having been duly summoned to the hearing. The court noted that the applicant had attended several hearings and had already presented her arguments on the merits. It also mentioned that the applicant had begun to avoid the court hearings in order to delay the trial. The applicant appealed, claiming, inter alia, that the trial court had rendered the judgment in her absence though she had been ill. 14.  On 6 December 2006 the Rostov Regional Court upheld the judgment on appeal. As to the applicant’s absence, the court found that the applicant had been properly notified about the hearing in question but had failed to inform the trial court that she had been ill and never requested to suspend the proceedings.