What to do if the roof of an apartment building is leaking in 2021

Causes of roof leaks

They consist of mechanical damage to the roof surface, especially at its intersection with utility lines. The roof can leak due to microcracks in the rolled material, a violation of the tightness of the roofing carpet, or the lack of a transition side.

The main reason is wear and tear of the material, frequent and excessive precipitation. Let's list what can happen due to a roof leak: the base of the roof is damaged, and a leak in the ceiling occurs in apartments on the top floor. This in turn can cause material damage to residents.

Claim for damages

According to the Housing Code of the Russian Federation, HOAs and housing offices are responsible for the maintenance and repair of common areas. Timely roof repair is within their competence. Homeowners have the right to demand compensation for damage in the following situations:

The apartment was damaged
The owner of the living space often gets sick from dampness,
Forced to leave home and rent another apartment during renovations.

The right to compensation is prescribed by the Law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights”, Article 4, and the Housing Code. File a claim with the HOA or the court. Attach documents and photos confirming the fact of property damage. To compensate for damage to health, medical certificates are needed about illnesses caused by leaks and dampness in the house.

Article Categories:
Housing and Communal Services and Homeowners' Associations

Where to contact

You should interact with the management organization, which, under an agreement with residents, is obliged to carry out routine repairs in apartment buildings and, if necessary, involve contractors in eliminating leaks. You will need to submit your application in writing.

An initiative group of residents can tackle the problem (usually everything depends on its scale). The management organization is the body to contact if the roof of an apartment building is leaking. First, the application must be addressed to her. If it does not respond to the legitimate demands of citizens, then it is necessary to contact the Housing Inspectorate or the prosecutor's office. If a solution to the problem is not found, you will need to go to court.

Where to file an application or claim for a roof leak?

Until March 2005, an application was submitted to the housing and communal services about a roof leak. But with the entry into force of the updated Housing Code of the Russian Federation, the state transferred the functions of managing apartment buildings to private hands. Since that time, housing offices have been renamed management companies (MCs). And apartment owners were faced with a choice, namely:

Conclude an agreement for the management of apartment buildings with the management company;
Create a homeowners association (HOA) or a housing cooperative (LC), independently handle utilities;
Resort to a combined option - transfer part of the services to the management of the management company, and deal with the remaining issues independently.

Therefore, at present, the phrase “contact the housing office” is conditional. Since the management of the apartment building will be carried out by the HOA or, the application is submitted to these organizations.

The appeal itself has two objectives at this stage.

Document the fact that the roof is leaking;
Record the day the application is submitted.

When solving the first problem, the applicants should have a copy of the incident report (flood, roof leak) in their hands. In the second case, the countdown of the response period and the accrual of penalties begins (if there is no response within the due time).

To solve the first problem, you need to call and call the utility workers. As a rule, they arrive promptly, inspect the scene of the incident, take measures immediately if possible, and draw up a report.

If this does not happen, then you need to contact the Criminal Code as soon as possible with a written statement. In this case, it will simultaneously solve two problems - to record the fact of a leak and the lack of response to the call from utility workers.

What to do first

It is necessary to document and clearly record the fact of leakage. If a citizen does not own construction tools, then it is enough to capture the leak using photo and video recording equipment and then call the management organization.

If possible, you should personally contact specialists who are obliged to respond to the residents’ application and conduct an examination on the basis of clause 5 of Government Decree No. 491 of 08/13/2006. The managing organization must accept the application. It should be prepared in two copies. One (with a note from a management company specialist about acceptance of the document for consideration) remains with the interested person.

Recording a roof leak

It must be performed by a specialist from the management organization. According to Appendix 2 of the Decree of the State Construction Committee of the Russian Federation No. 170, adopted in 2003, a leak report must be drawn up on the day the resident applies. The problem itself is eliminated within 24 hours after contacting.

The management organization may not send specialists and deliberately not draw up an act. Then you need to do this yourself, with simultaneous photo and video recording, and the presence of witnesses, including neighbors. The act must sequentially indicate:

address of the apartment, information about its owners, homeowners;
date, time, place of leakage;
technical description of the problem - size of the bay, degree of damage (walls, wallpaper) - this is necessary for subsequent damage assessment.

The document must be signed by the author of the document and witnesses. If the document is drawn up by representatives of the management organization, then in addition to the owner of the apartment and witnesses, it is signed by a technical specialist. It is advisable to attach photo and video materials to the act.

Remember

On the issue of responsibility for the condition and repair of balconies in apartment buildings, management organizations should remember the following:

The common property of the apartment building does not include the entire balcony, but only the balcony slab (floor) and the load-bearing wall of the house.
The management authority is obliged to conduct inspections and monitor the condition of the common property of the house, including balcony slabs, and take timely measures to restore their proper condition.
The management authority must carry out routine repairs of balcony slabs at the expense of funds collected from residents of the house for the maintenance and repair of common property, regardless of whether the corresponding decision was made at the OSS.
If the balcony slab requires major repairs, about which an inspection report has been drawn up, then the decision on repairs can only be made by the owners at a general meeting. In this case, the management authority should carry out work as part of routine repairs, if major repairs are not planned in the near future.
If the owners have not decided to overhaul the emergency balcony slab, then the management organization has the right to close and seal the entrance to the emergency balcony.

The management organization should not ignore complaints from residents of the building about the condition of the balconies: if the structure collapses due to wear and tear on the balcony slab, the management organization and its officials will bear responsibility for this.

Appointment of the commission

Its members include: a technical specialist of the Criminal Code, representatives of the Housing Inspectorate, and local administration. The final composition of the commission depends on the ownership of the house, the scale of the problem, and the degree of neglect of its solution. It is appointed by order of the head of the management organization, the Housing Inspectorate - depending on the initiator of the inspection.

Before finding a leak in the roof, you can simulate a leak (using a thin stream from a watering can) or use a flaw detector. If direct dialogue with the management company is not successful, then you will need to contact the Housing Inspectorate and local administration, which monitor the work of management companies.

Court

At this stage, it is necessary to provide correctly executed documents and evidence of damage on information media. Videos, photos and copies of the completed acts will come in handy here.

IMPORTANT! The statement of claim must contain a detailed description of the inaction of the responsible persons, indicating their positions and names.

It must be taken into account that legal proceedings can drag on for a long time. We can once again make an attempt to resolve the issue peacefully. You can count on a positive court decision in favor of the plaintiff if all documents and undeniable evidence have been collected.

Not all management companies meet the necessary requirements. If the management company does not want to solve the problems of its residents, you will have to be patient and know your rights in order to be able to defend them.

Roof restoration

Required:

repair rafters, restore screed waterproofing;
cover the roof with bitumen, seal the drain;
patch or change the load-bearing structures of the roof;
repair the roofing “pie” and perform other work.

The assessment of the upcoming work is carried out by an engineer of the management company. All work, as well as costs, must be accurately specified in the estimate. The time frame for repairing a roof leak is one day from the moment of detection. But in practice, they can be much larger, depending on the complexity of the problem and the readiness of the management organization to fulfill its obligations under the MKD maintenance agreement.

What to do if the apartment is flooded from the roof?

Based on paragraph 152 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of May 6, 2011 N 354, if damage to the life, health or property of the consumer was caused through the fault of the contractor, it must be compensated by the contractor, that is, the management company. A damage report is drawn up regarding the fact of damage. This act must contain a detailed description of all damage caused.

The flood report must be drawn up in your presence together with representatives of the management company; they are obliged to come to you after your application.

How to correctly draw up a flood report for an apartment?

If you discover a leak from the ceiling, then by law you are required to report it to the emergency dispatch service of your management company. When contacting the emergency service, your request must be registered in the call log. State your full name, the address where you live, and also tell us what the violation is, in your case it is a leak from the ceiling. Next, ask the dispatcher to tell you the number of your request to the journal, the time of registration of this request, and the dispatcher will tell you his full name. Write down all this data and do not lose the recording, save it, it may come in handy.

Next, we contact your management company in writing. Write a statement and inform it that your apartment was flooded with sewage from the roof. Firstly, demand an inspection and drawing up an inspection report and a report on the identified deficiencies, we also demand that the violations be eliminated and the roof repaired to stop the leak, and secondly, invite a representative of the management company to draw up a report on the damage caused based on paragraph 152 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 06.05. 2011 N 354. Your appeal must be responded to within 3 days. Do not forget to write the application in 2 copies; your copy must be marked with the entry number, signature or seal of the organization and the date of acceptance, if you bring the application and hand it over personally to an authorized person. Keep your copy, this is confirmation of your official application. And my advice to you is to conduct all communications with the management company in writing and store all requests in one place.

You can also send your appeal by mail, registered mail with a list of attachments and receipt of receipt.

After you have submitted your application for consideration, you should receive an answer within 3 days; usually you leave your phone number so that they can contact you. Most likely this will be the case; a representative of the management company will call you back and agree with you on a time to conduct an inspection and draw up the necessary reports.

The most important thing for you is to get 2 acts, this is an act on identified deficiencies, it must be signed by you and a representative of the management organization, one copy remains with you and the second mandatory document is an act on damage. It indicates all property that was damaged due to flooding. Make sure that it contains all the property that was damaged, and these are repair elements, a chandelier, a ceiling, laminate flooring, household appliances, clothes, etc. If the representative of the management company refuses to include any things in the act, write them down on a separate sheet and when signing the act, write your objections with what you do not agree with and write those things that were not included in the act and describe that these things were damaged due to flooding, but the representative of the Criminal Code refuses to include them in the act. This is important, since the act will definitely be in court as evidence, and if you agree and do not add or state anything, the judge will be sure that you simply decided to add things in order to increase the damage and will ask you why you immediately We didn’t include them in the act and at this point it will be difficult to prove anything, so we add all the things at once. As for repairs, traces of flooding can appear within 1 month, so don’t be in too much of a hurry to carry out the examination, the main thing is that you have 2 acts on hand, by the way, the act of damage caused is signed by you and representatives of the management company and your copy remains with you, do not forget to supplement it with objections, if you had any, this is just as important, since the act of damage caused is the main document confirming the damage and it indicates the cause of the flooding.

What to do after receiving a flood report?

The fact that you have an official document confirming the damage is great, but it’s too early to go to court and it’s also too early to demand something from the Criminal Code. As was said, we wait a couple of weeks for the traces of flooding to appear as much as possible, and if you see that after drawing up the report, new defects have appeared that were not there, then you have the right to invite representatives of the management company again and draw up an additional report, do so if new tracks appeared.

If no traces appear, then we need to obtain an official document confirming the amount of damage caused. Such a document can be provided to you by an expert real estate appraiser; such specialists can be found in any city; they usually work in law firms involved in the recovery of damages. Find such a specialist and order a flood damage assessment from him.

You will need to provide for assessment copies of title documents for residential premises, a floor plan, an explication of the apartment, your passport as a citizen of the Russian Federation and an act of damage.

The expert will tell you how to notify the guilty party and invite him to an examination, since during an examination the guilty party is always invited by telegram, and if you do not invite the culprit, then in court he can easily challenge your examination.

When the appraiser comes to you, he will photograph everything and write down all the damage in the inspection report, then within a few days he will prepare a report that will reflect the total amount of damage, which includes not only materials for repairs, but also the cost of repair work. and the value of all damaged items. This is called a report and it is this that confirms the final amount of damage and you can already go to court with it, since it is an official document.

But the pre-trial procedure for resolving a dispute must be followed, otherwise the claim procedure, since if it is not followed, then your claim may simply be denied.

To comply, we send a claim to the guilty party, it is written in free form and we state in it what happened, where and on what date. How the incident is confirmed (report of damage caused, report of identified deficiencies, attach copies). How the amount of damage is justified (expert report, enclosed a copy). Your demands, for example, to compensate for damage in the amount of 150,000 rubles. We put a date and signature. We write the claim in 2 copies and also do not forget to include in the claim a list of the attached documents.

We submit the claim, both acts and a copy of the report to the Criminal Code. On your copy of the claim, the person authorized to receive correspondence must put the date of acceptance, signature or seal and the incoming number, you take the copy for yourself and wait 10 days.

You can also send a claim with the same set of documents, a registered letter with a list of attachments and a notification of delivery by mail.

If within 10 days they do not contact you and express a desire to resolve the conflict, then we will go to court. We draw up a statement of claim in which we write almost everything the same as in the claim, attach to it copies of both acts, a copy of the examination, a copy of the claim with receipt marks (confirms compliance with the claim procedure), there is no need to pay a state fee since we are filing a claim for on the basis of the law on the protection of consumer rights, and on the basis of Article 333.36 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, in this category of cases the plaintiff is exempt from paying state fees, we also attach other evidence and other documents and receipts to confirm the costs of preparing for the case.

A lawyer in your city can help you draw up a competent statement of claim, but you can find a sample statement of claim and use it to draw up your own, it’s simple, but be sure to refer to the law on the protection of consumer rights, carefully read articles 29, 13. And also article 1064 The Civil Code of the Russian Federation and Chapter 59 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, this chapter regulates the procedure for compensation for damage.

Be aware that, on the basis of paragraph 6 of Article 13 of the “Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights,” an organization that voluntarily refuses to satisfy the consumer’s demands upon a claim pays a fine in favor of the consumer in the amount of 50% of the amount of damage.

Also, in the future, you have the right to recover from K a penalty for the fact that she illegally withheld your funds.

Appeal to higher authorities

If the management organization does not want to work, then it will be necessary to seek protection from higher authorities. To do this, you must fill out an application. Where can I complain about the management company? You need to contact the Housing Inspectorate, government bodies that administer justice or oversee compliance with the law.

To the prosecutor's office

It monitors the implementation of the law and has the right to make a proposal to eliminate the violation in accordance with Art. 24 Federal Law No. 2202-1 dated January 17, 1992. Measures on it must be taken within a month after the prosecutor’s response to the problem. The complaint must be filed in accordance with Art. 7 Federal Law No. 59 dated 02.05.2006. Her anonymity is excluded. A sample application to the prosecutor's office can be found on our website. The document is reviewed within 30 days from the date of submission.

To court

The statement of claim should be drawn up according to the rules of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation (Articles 131-132). If the management organization stubbornly refuses to repair the roof, then residents can do this at their own expense (all expenses should be recorded). Next, you will have to demand recovery of the amounts spent on repairs directly from the management company. All claims and demands are set out in the statement of claim; a standard sample can be found on our website.

Required documents

To file a claim you will need:

a copy of the applicant's passport;
copies of documents confirming the leak – report, answers from the management organization;
results of examinations, if they were carried out before filing a claim;
a receipt for payment of the state duty - depends on the value of the claim.

Documents can be submitted in person or through a legal representative. The authority of the intermediary should be confirmed by a notarized power of attorney.

Where to get money for major roof repairs in an apartment building

The funds are paid regularly by the residents of the house. The money is accumulated in a special account or is managed by a regional operator. The management organization must pay for the roof repairs. If there is insufficient funds, additional financial assistance from residents may be required. The problem is solved taking into account the scale of the leak. In most cases, it is eliminated during routine repairs, which are carried out by the management organization at the expense of monthly payments from residents.

Summing up

If the roof leaks, you should take the initiative to force the management organization to fulfill the terms of the apartment building maintenance agreement. You can solve the problem at your own expense and then recover it from the management company. But to do this, you will need to prove that the residents took all measures (sent reminder statements, contacted the management organization personally) to solve the problem peacefully. In conflict situations, it is important to obtain timely support from a qualified lawyer (available free of charge on the website).

How should utilities act?

After receiving a complaint, the head of the HOA must take the following actions:

Come with the commission to the applicant’s place of residence.
Inspect the apartment and roof with specialists.
Draw up a report on the fact of the leak.
Provide the victims with a written response to the claim and indicate within what time frame the roof repair will be carried out.

Utility workers have 1 day to eliminate small blood leaks and 5 days to repair the drain. Weekends and holidays are not an obstacle to carrying out repairs.

In case of refusal to carry out repair work or compensate the damage to the injured resident of the house, contact higher authorities.