The legal nature, content, grounds and conditions for the application of property liability for environmental damage are still not clearly defined either in doctrine or in legislation. No single approach has been developed in the use of special terminology denoting the key concepts of the legal institution of compensation for damage caused to the environment (environmental harm or damage to the environment, property liability for damage to objects of nature or civil liability for damage to the environment, etc.). Such ambiguity complicates the current practice of law enforcement in the sphere under consideration. The practice of compensation for environmental damage shows that the legal mechanism of compensation for such damage is not devoid of conceptual, legal and technical defects that hinder the effectiveness of compensation and preventive functions of property liability for damage to the environment. It is also impossible not to pay attention to the presence of litigation in cases of compensation for damage to the environment arising from the ambiguous understanding of nature users of their obligations to compensate for damage to the environment. In the legislation there is no differentiation in the legal regulation of application of measures of property character in the case where such damage was caused by the unfair actions of the users of natural resources and legal economic and other activities which are approved by the state. At the same time, more and more often in recent years, social and legal practice actualizes the issue of the limits of property liability for environmental damage.