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- Simple movements: SF wants to reduce the burden on citizens when paying debts for housing and communal services
Simple movements: SF wants to reduce the burden on citizens when paying debts for housing and communal services
In Russia, they can reduce the burden on citizens when paying debts for housing and communal services. This initiative was put forward by the Federation Council. According to experts, the new rules will not help reduce housing and communal services debts, but they will significantly reduce the bureaucratic burden on debtors and the courts. What the measures proposed by the senators envisage is in the Izvestia article.
Legally
The Federation Council proposed to reduce the financial burden on citizens and the courts when paying off debts for housing and communal services. The senators sent the relevant bill to the Government of the Russian Federation.
The accompanying materials note that the significant amount of accounts receivable for housing and communal services is one of the most acute problems in the field of housing and communal services today. And this, according to parliamentarians, makes it difficult to attract investment in the industry.
"Prompt recovery <... debts for housing and communal services are hindered, among other things, by certain rules of judicial procedure, which lead to an increase in the financial burden on citizens who are debtors for housing and communal services, and on housing and communal services organizations collecting such debts, as well as an increase in the burden on the judicial system," the document emphasizes.
The new amendments propose to amend the current legislation, allowing one application to be made for the issuance of a court order to collect debts for housing and communal services to several equity owners of one apartment. Now, such applications must be submitted for each owner, despite the fact that, as a rule, they are members of the same family. When submitting each application, debtors pay a state fee in the amount of 2 thousand rubles.
Meanwhile, utility bills included in a single payment document are generated by information and settlement centers in the housing and communal services sector in accordance with agency agreements they conclude with different service providers. The bill proposes to allow such institutions to submit one comprehensive application for a court order to collect debts for different types of housing and communal services, since debt owed by owners is usually formed immediately for all types of services included in a single payment.
In addition, the senators believe that it is necessary to improve the mechanism for notifying the debtor in writ proceedings. In particular, because the claimant does not always have the full name of the citizen due to circumstances beyond his control. In such cases, parliamentarians want to send notifications to the address of the property in relation to which the debt was incurred.
The developers of the bill remind that now the recoverers are required to attach to the application for a court order a notice of delivery or other documents confirming that the debtor has received copies of the application. This leads to postal expenses of housing and communal services organizations and the cost of notary services. The funds spent are not compensated in any way. In this regard, the senators propose to recover expenses incurred by organizations from debtors.
Another point stipulated in the document is the distribution of foreclosure claims at the location of the property. At the same time, the housing and communal services organization should be able to request, at the request of the court, information about the debtor's place of residence or place of residence, if this information about him is unknown.
The editorial board of Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Russian Federation. No response has been received at the time of publication.
A pressing issue
The problem of citizens' debt for housing and communal services remains one of the most painful for the public utilities sector, Kirill Parfenov, an independent expert and associate professor at the Department of Public and Municipal Administration, is convinced.
— There are relatively few fully solvent citizens who have large debts, because they consider the rent to be something secondary. And there are many small debtors, most of whom barely have enough money for groceries and medicines," the expert explains.
For the first category of citizens, the reduction in workload promised by the senators is not significant, he believes. If a person does not have money, it is almost impossible to recover it from him.
The new rules will not affect the timely payment of housing and communal services in any way, because the initiative concerns only a certain simplification of the procedure for applying to the court, but it does not affect the debt collection process, which is the main problem, Parfenov is sure.
The initiative, however, will partially reduce the burden on citizens, since we are talking about specific amounts, Senator Oleg Golov believes. It is worth considering, however, that the changes relate mainly to the situation with shares, says Dmitry Bondar, a public figure and housing and communal services expert.
— The idea of having one appeal for all owners in one apartment looks like an attempt to reduce costs. But the obligation to pay for utilities does not disappear by itself," the Izvestia interlocutor emphasizes.
Golov draws attention to the fact that there is now a paradoxical situation in which, if a family of three owns an apartment, they are charged not only the amount of the principal debt, but also at least 6 thousand rubles in court costs.
— The proposed bill eliminates this injustice. "One property — one statement" is a logical approach. Citizens should not overpay in multiples of the number of owners for the same collection procedure. This is a direct cost saving for families in a difficult financial situation," the parliamentarian explains.
There is no direct answer yet to the question of whether this will help pay off debts faster, since housing and communal services debts usually arise due to financial problems with owners, says Bondar. Debts are usually systemic in nature — they accumulate if a person does not have enough money for the most necessary things, such as food and medicines, says Parfenov.
"In such a situation, every extra thousand that the senators' initiative saves is a big deal," he agrees.
The new procedure will not directly affect the timely repayment of debts, as debtors will not receive money from this, Golov confirms. However, this will indirectly contribute to solving the problem by simplifying the procedure.
"The opportunity to submit one comprehensive application from the settlement center for light, water and heat will immediately relieve the courts and speed up the making of decisions," he points out.
At the same time, when the amount of debt does not accrue legal costs, it becomes psychologically and financially easier for a person to start paying it off, the senator emphasizes.
Important measures
The housing and communal services system will not face problems with the implementation of the new standards, Oleg Golov is sure.
— On the contrary, the initiative solves their "headache". Resource organizations are now incurring enormous losses on postage and payment of state duties, submitting piles of papers to each owner separately," he recalls.
If the legal costs for citizens are reduced, the state budget will suffer from this, not the utilities, Kirill Parfenov warns.
In turn, the proposal to shift the cost of mail from housing and communal services enterprises to debtors, if it threatens anyone with problems, it is precisely the debtors themselves, the expert clarifies. Collecting postage from the debtor will return the money to the industry. Therefore, the new initiative is beneficial for public utilities — due to it there will be less paperwork and irretrievable losses, Golov is sure.
— Although it's hardly worth talking about these expenses seriously, since they make up a fraction of a percent of even the average debt. Problems in the housing and communal services system arise due to the inability to collect debts, and if the initiative really makes it easier to at least submit documents to the judicial authorities and get their solutions, then there will be one less problem," Parfenov is convinced.
An important measure proposed in the bill, according to the Head, is the creation of a notification mechanism for real estate addresses.
— This solves a dead-end situation when the claimant does not have complete information about where the debtor actually lives. Permission to send notifications to the address of the apartment for which the debt has accumulated and file a lawsuit at the location of the property is common sense. This will unlock thousands of suspended cases and allow money to reach the repair of pipes and porches faster," the senator believes.
In turn, Dmitry Bondar sees the most noticeable option, in which settlement centers receive a more understandable mechanism for applying for a court order for several payments at once.
Senator Igor Murog also considers a single procedure for judicial recovery to be significant. According to the parliamentarian, this measure creates a balance between the interests of citizens and the needs of public utilities.
However, there may also be risks in changing the rules, Bondar points out. In shared ownership, for example, liability is related to the size of the shares.
— If you combine the requirements for all of them in one document at once, you will need to be careful so that the amounts do not "move out" and one person does not find himself in a position where they are trying to collect too much from him, — the expert warns.
The new measures can increase the efficiency of collecting payments and, as a result, improve payment discipline in the housing and communal services sector, but it is important that these rules are accompanied by transparent mechanisms for calculating shares and do not lead to disputes between owners, Igor Murog agrees.
And in general, solving the problem of debt collection for housing and communal services requires not polishing judicial procedures, but searching for fundamentally different mechanisms, Parfenov emphasizes.
"It may be advisable to create a special service whose task will be to identify the causes of non—payments and help those who really need it," he concludes.
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