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- Too much housing and communal services: they want to ban the management of houses for housing cooperatives
Too much housing and communal services: they want to ban the management of houses for housing cooperatives
For housing and construction cooperatives (HBC), they want to introduce a ban on the management of apartment buildings. They are proposed to be eliminated after the completion of construction. Such a bill was prepared by State Duma deputies from United Russia. They claim that HBC can manage houses in bad faith: accumulate debts and formally approach household property. Not everyone in the industry agrees with this: HOAs and management companies can also manage housing inefficiently, so people should not be deprived of another form of management.
Why do they want to ban HBC
Housing and communal services may be prohibited from managing apartment buildings, obliging them to be liquidated after completion of construction. As Izvestia found out, such a bill may be introduced this week by the head of the State Duma Committee on Construction and Housing from the United Russia faction, Sergei Pakhomov, and a number of deputies from the committee.
HBC is an association of legal entities or individuals for housing construction. This is a non-profit organization whose goal cannot be to make a profit, but only to build a house. Individuals establish a cooperative, accept its members, collect share contributions from them, and use the proceeds to build a house. After the real estate is put into operation, all members of the cooperative who have paid their dues in full have ownership of the housing. Until 2018, HBC was one of the official alternative forms of shared-equity construction. After amendments are made to the law on shared-equity construction, funds for construction can be raised only if it is a question of housing and communal services with state support. At the same time, cooperatives themselves are not prohibited and continue to manage apartment buildings that have already been built. According to the State Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Communal Services, today their total number in Russia is over 10 thousand units.
Today, HBC acts as a developer and provides construction and reconstruction of an apartment building on the basis of a permit issued to it, according to an explanatory note to the bill, which is available to Izvestia. One of the functions of a cooperative may be to manage houses after their construction is completed. However, as practice shows, HBC often does not just assume these responsibilities, but also transfers them to third-party organizations, the document says.
― The transfer of such control takes place at best. At worst, a real anarchy is happening: payments are not being collected, debts are accumulating in front of resource workers. Therefore, we propose to exclude from legal relations such cooperatives, which in their essence are neither HOA nor CC," Sergei Pakhomov explained to Izvestia.
According to him, in connection with this bill, it is proposed to liquidate housing and communal services after the completion of construction, so that within three months after the payment of the last owner's share they will be transformed into a HOA or hire a management company. After all, their main task is to build an apartment building, the deputy stressed.
― If the owners fail to reach an agreement, the housing supervision authorities will apply to the court for compulsory liquidation. In this case, the local authorities will hold a competition to choose a criminal code," added Sergey Pakhomov.
According to the estimates of the deputies, more than 50% of such housing and communal services today carry out formal management of houses.
In Russia, it is not uncommon for residents to be deceived by the management of cooperatives. For example, last year in Novosibirsk, the prosecutor's office opened a criminal case against the head of a cooperative who, from July 1, 2022 to January 31, 2024, collected money from apartment owners to pay for heating and hot water, but the funds were spent for other purposes. The damage, according to law enforcement officials, amounted to 6 million rubles. In Perm in 2023, 11 criminal cases were initiated against the chairman of the Housing and Communal Services Committee, one of them also related to the embezzlement of funds in the amount of 6 million rubles.
The press service of the Ministry of Construction told Izvestia that the bill had not been reviewed.
How HBC is left unfinished and closed
Many housing and communal Services have been managing the house since the 1970s after the completion of construction, Tatiana Gotsulenko, director of the Association of Housing Management and Maintenance Organizations, told Izvestia.
― We consider this a vicious practice, as there are examples of ineffective management, because this is an unusual function for them. Although, of course, management companies also have cases of accumulation of debts to resource organizations," the expert explained.
Vera Moskvina, executive director of the association "Housing and Communal Services-Control of the City of Moscow", in turn, noted: cooperatives often transfer management to third-party organizations in order for them to take over the maintenance of a house with construction defects.
― As soon as the construction guarantee ends, this hired organization may resign and leave the owners with serious problems around the house. Because if the developer hasn't finished something, then people will have to change and finish everything at their own expense, and the company will just wash its hands," she explained.
Alexey Polyakov, General Director of Housing and Communal Services No. 1 of the Krasnogvardeysky District in St. Petersburg, expressed a different point of view to Izvestia.
― Today there are three forms of management in the Housing Code: through cooperatives, HOAs and CC. I don't understand why people shouldn't have a choice in this. After all, management companies can also be ineffective. It probably depends on the head of this company, the management staff, as well as in the housing and communal services," the expert explained.
According to him, if the head of the Housing and Communal Services, HOA or CC understands his business, then everything will be fine for apartment owners. After all, in fact, he fulfills the will of the tenants, who, according to the LCD, can influence this or that decision by their vote.
Alexander Tolmachev, a member of the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation on entrepreneurship in the field of housing and communal services, believes that in some cases housing and communal services manage apartment buildings even better than management companies, since tenants do not pay utility bills at all due to cost savings in these cooperatives.
― Today, HBC and HOA pay neither income tax, nor property tax, nor land tax. This was done by the state, as the management of the house is a non—commercial activity. Therefore, people in these associations pay 30-35% less for housing and communal services than in the Criminal Code, which must make a profit and pay taxes. In addition, HBC can earn money in its own home when it is allowed to put kiosks and parking lots on the land, which is transferred for free, due to which utility bills and capital repairs may decrease, the expert explained.
In addition, HBC and HOA can keep money in their accounts for major repairs, which, by decision of the tenants' meeting, are directed to any purpose (roof repairs, etc.), as well as earn money from them in the bank in favor of apartment owners. Therefore, the liquidation of cooperatives will primarily benefit large monopolies, the expert believes.
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