How to legally avoid paying for housing and communal services in 2021 - the law on writing off housing and communal services debts, statute of limitations

Responsibilities for making payments for apartment utilities

Different categories of citizens have obligations to pay for services under different circumstances:

• owners - upon the onset of the right of ownership and disposal of housing;
• Tenant – signing a social lease contract or commercial lease of premises.

If the listed persons use all public services that make living easier, they must pay for the benefits provided to them. Ignoring this rule may well lead to the disconnection or termination of the supply of services, or the company going to court, with subsequent debt collection.

Legal regulation

Articles number 30 and 154 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation provide a list of mandatory payments:

1. Consumers must pay for the services provided for the maintenance and repair of household appliances and mechanisms.
2. For the supply of thermal fluid for heating the apartment, even in the event of a temporary lack of supply. This is enshrined in Government Resolution No. 354 (as amended in 2021).
3. When social or commercial hiring, you should rely on Art. 153 housing legal act.

The old resolution, which was in force until the end of 2021, allowed property owners to legally not pay expenses if no one lived in the apartment for a long time. However, the new standards with adjustments are based on the number of persons officially registered in the apartment.

The presence of metering equipment allows you not to pay for electricity, cold and hot water, gas if you have not used them. But for comprehensive maintenance of household appliances and mechanisms, the amount is charged every month, regardless of whether someone lived in the apartment or not.

Watch the video: “Housing and communal services. Mega bomb. Now you don’t have to pay 100%.”

Acceptable period when you can not pay for utilities in the apartment without consequences

Of course, not every homeowner dreams of becoming a habitual defaulter. The owner of the apartment may be fired from his job, perhaps a large amount will be spent on treatment or another unfavorable situation, which will lead to the formation of debt. The management company will not be interested in why its subscriber does not pay for services, if he must, pay. Therefore, an additional agreement with the utility company will help you temporarily avoid paying overdue bills. The user does not pay, and the management company does not require it, again, temporarily.

The apartment tenant will not have to count on a completely interest-free deferment, but this will save him from visiting the courtroom or having his property seized.

A citizen should enter into a certain agreement with utility services, according to which he undertakes to make payment a little later. However, it must be added that the services have the right to act at their own discretion, i.e. whether to enter into such agreements or not. They can make an exception only for a disciplined user. Those who are not, have the right to refuse.

There is a second legal way to avoid charges for renting an apartment, maintenance, major repairs, heating media, and other utilities provided for general household needs. A homeowner who is absent for more than 5 days has the right to submit a petition for recalculation of utility services provided according to consumption standards, in order to legally avoid paying for housing and communal services.

Such a statement is drawn up before the consumer’s departure or upon his return, but no later than 30 days from the date of arrival. The specified period has the right to be extended if it was missed for reasons beyond the will of the person, for example, a long-term serious illness. Even the judicial authorities can pay attention to such a petition and make a decision in favor of the tenant. However, the circumstances must be confirmed by certificates and other official evidence.

Legal grounds for not paying for housing and communal services

How not to pay for housing and communal services if there is a good reason

According to Decree 354 of the Russian Government, citizens may not pay for utility bills only in certain cases. The latter are also provided for by the mentioned legal act. Circumstances not included in it do not provide for deferred payment. In 2021, apartment owners have the right to take advantage of the actions provided.

Recalculation

Residents are given the opportunity to recalculate if downtime is detected in the supply of water, gas, electricity, or other resources, official confirmation of the facts:

1. There is no hot or cold water supply for more than 4 hours.
2. Lack of drainage and sewerage for the same duration.
3. Disconnection of the house from the electrical network for 2 hours. If there are additional low-power devices in the building, the duration of the shutdown should not be longer than 24 hours.
4. Lack of gas supply – 4 hours. in 30 days.
5. The heating system of the apartment, when the outside air temperature is below +8° C, should not be inoperative for more than 16 hours.

The owner has the right to seek a recalculation if he provides documentary evidence of his absence or proves the lack of receipt of the services guaranteed by the contract, or poor quality of their performance. In this case, you can avoid paying for utilities and without consequences.

Recalculation is not carried out for the following categories:

• landline phone;
• central heating;
• access or common antenna;
• radio connection point;
• provision and repair of local areas and buildings.

Only those residential premises that are not equipped with individual metering devices are subject to changes to previously accrued amounts.

Recalculation for services provided but not received is possible in the following cases:

• the owner of the residential premises was absent from home for more than five calendar days;
• the application for recalculation is sent no later than 30 days later. on arrival.

The last condition in order not to pay for housing and communal services legally, is correctly executed documents that confirm the fact of some absence of the tenant in the house.

Poor quality of service

Failure to fulfill its obligations by a utility company also includes the provision of poor-quality services.

Then the citizen should follow the instructions:

1. Draw up a petition by hand or print it out to the housing authority, where you demand that a representative of the organization be sent to him. The document must indicate the period of time during which a housing and communal services employee must arrive. Typically this period is two days. The petition is drawn up in 2 copies - the first remains in the department, the second - the applicant, with the date of acceptance by the enterprise indicated, signed by the secretary.
2. A complaint is written, which indicates the inconsistencies identified by the citizen and the time period when they must be eliminated. An appeal for revision of the previously accrued amount is also provided here.
3. In the absence of a legal representative of the housing office or the organization’s refusal to sign the complaint, the owner has the right to collect signatures from neighbors about the identified deficiencies.
4. A statement of claim is filed with the court, with the presentation of all copies of documents collected for this case.

The apartment owner has the right to file a written complaint with the consumer protection department.

Watch the video: “I don’t pay for housing and communal services legally. Energosbyt."

The water in the apartment does not meet the standards

A resident of a house can count on a change in previously accrued amounts for water supply downwards under the following circumstances:

• long-term absence of hot media during hydraulic pressure testing of pipelines;
• discrepancy between the water in the apartment and the standards stated in the contract.

The owner of the property must state the identified comments in a written complaint and send it to the management company.

Charges for water supply are made subject to the following indicators:

• cold and hot supply - pressure from 0.03 MPa or 0.29 atm, which complies with SanPin standards;
• DHW should be heated to t +60° C, the rate of filling into a 3-liter vessel is 8.5 seconds.

Deviation from the set temperature is allowed in the direction of decreasing +50, increasing +75 degrees.

Inadequate heating in the apartment

Maintaining the required temperature in the apartment during the cold season is also an indicator of the performance of utilities. The air in the house should be heated according to established standards from +18° C, and in corner living spaces - from 20 degrees.

In cold regions of the country, where the thermometer drops below 30° below zero, the air in the apartment should be heated to +20 degrees in all rooms. The control measurement is carried out in the central part of the largest insulated room at a distance from the floor of 1 m. Non-compliance with the standards at night can reach no more than minus 3° downward and +4° up. During the day, temperature fluctuations in the heating system are not allowed.

Cast iron pipes must be under pressure no more than 0.6 MPa or 0.59 atmospheres. In convector, panel heating systems or air heaters - 1 unit or 9.8 atm. In these cases, deviations from the norm are not allowed. If you observe inconsistencies in the functioning of the systems, you can safely submit a request for recalculation.

By how much and in what cases should the cost of heating be reduced?

If the owner is registered, but did not live in the apartment

Russians have the right to register at one address, but are located in another place. However, citizens are interested in the question: if you do not live in an apartment, do you need to pay utility bills? In the absence of individual consumption meters, the owner has the right to apply for a recalculation of rent.

Changes to the previously calculated amount are made only in the temporary absence of residents. The principle of making adjustments to receipts is established by the new Government Resolution No. 354 (in the current version of 2021), replacing the old one that has lost force. But it should be added that the repeated calculation affects only the water supply of both types, sewerage and gas supply.

If no one lives in the apartment temporarily, you must notify the management company that services this house. The application is drawn up in any form, which expresses a request to stop accruals for services for a specified period due to the absence of residents at the given address. An official document confirming the fact of absence must be attached to the submitted application.

When there is no corresponding application from an individual, utility services have the right to charge him monthly payments in full.

A recalculation of the amount billed for housing and communal services can be made at the request of a citizen if he has not been in the apartment for more than 5 days. However, please note that days of departure and arrival are not taken into account.

The maximum period for which you can request a one-time change in previously accrued amounts is determined by six months. To extend the mentioned period, you must submit the application again, attaching the necessary documents.

If all of the above conditions are met, if an individual is registered in the apartment but does not live, it is necessary to pay for utilities used to maintain the house and its functions.

Refusal of housing and communal services

The homeowner has the right to completely refuse the services of utility organizations if he has individual metering devices that allow him to record the fact of non-use.

Here, parity is maintained between his rights and the interests of other residents under the following circumstances:

1. In the absence of consumption of both types of water supply, metering devices will show zero consumption, which is the basis for the absence of charges.
2. A similar fixation applies to the electric, gas meter and heating system, if it is registered by the meter.
3. Disabling the wired radio is also allowed when such an item for payment is included in the receipt;
4. The owner of satellite TV can refuse to use a collective home television antenna.

The apartment owner will not be able to cancel other services, for example, garbage disposal, since the housing office is not able to accurately establish this fact.

However, the apartment owner has the right to completely refuse the above-mentioned services and terminate the contract only after paying for the previously provided resources.

Watch the video: “Goszhilnadzor. Unscheduled inspection."

Payment for the elevator

If an elevator is installed in a multi-story building, but it has been under repair for a long time, you can file a petition to revise previously accrued amounts for the use of the lifting structure. Based on the management agreement for a multi-storey building, the maximum period for an elevator to be under repair is determined by one current month.

If residents register for a longer period, they can submit a request to the management company to remove charges for using the elevator. This is indicated in Decree of the executive authority No. 491 (as amended in 2021).

Payment for garbage removal

Payment for waste disposal at this time is calculated based on the total area of ​​the apartment or premises. However, the calculations used do not always justify themselves and, therefore, the earliest time for calculating the amount of fees for the removal of mucor will be the number of officially registered citizens in a certain apartment.

However, if an individual is registered in this area, but does not live for a long time, he still needs to pay for waste disposal.

Rules for drawing up and sample refusal of utilities

A citizen may not pay for the services of a housing company if he stops using them.

To do this you should:

• visit the Criminal Code with a civil passport or other identification document;
• file a petition to refuse any service;
• supplement the application with documentary support.

After the organization makes a positive decision, the company will send an authorized person to the applicant to confirm the information.

A sample application for termination of a contract for housing and communal services according to the 2021 rules is available for download here.

Other reasons for not paying for housing and communal services

An individual has the right not to pay for utility services provided in a poor quality manner.

This indicator is:

• constantly dirty hall;
• non-working elevator;
• absence of an access door or its damage;
• invoices for waste disposal exceed those specified in the contract.

If such violations are detected, the citizen also has the right to demand a recalculation.

How to reduce payments for housing and communal services if you are temporarily not living in an apartment during the period of self-isolation

For them, the issue of the need to pay for utilities, which they have not used for a certain amount of time, has become especially relevant. Alexander Kozlov , spoke about how to reduce payments for housing and communal services and what is needed for this, in a conversation with a correspondent of the site .

— If the owner did not live in the apartment, will he have to pay for services?

— Everyone knows that the receipts indicate housing and utility services, plus a separate fee for major repairs. As for housing services, which include the maintenance and repair of common property, the management of apartment buildings, they are paid based on the area of ​​the living space, in other words, by the number of square meters. Accordingly, these are constant payments that do not depend on the number of registered citizens or on the fact of living or not living in the apartment.

Regarding utilities, this is already linked to the number of registered residents. It is very important whether individual metering devices are installed in the apartment or house. If there are meters for cold, hot water, electricity, gas, perhaps even for heating, then payment is made according to them. When a person does not live, zero values ​​are simply submitted so that no accruals occur.

— What if there are no meters?

— When individual metering devices are not available due to the impossibility of installing them, you can count on the fact that a recalculation will be made upon provision of documents confirming the fact of the person’s absence for more than five calendar days. For example, you went to the country, there are no meters, and charges are made based on the number of registered ones, multiplied by the consumption standard. This is the average value that is established in the municipality. If a person does not live, then a supporting document can be a certificate from the chairman of a gardening non-profit partnership stating that the person lives in the country from such and such a date. These could be travel documents for traveling to another region, or a train ticket. They will become the basis for the management organization to carry out the appropriate recalculation.

— What to do with the overhaul column?

— This item of expenditure depends on decisions made in a particular subject of the Federation. In some places, payment was suspended during the pandemic. Thus, residents of Moscow and the Moscow region were exempted from paying for major repairs for three months - until June.

Let us recall that earlier the Deputy Minister of Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Russian Federation Maxim Egorov reported that in a number of regions of Russia, in the situation with the coronavirus pandemic, the collection of fees for major repairs of apartment buildings was suspended. According to him, Moscow, Moscow, Rostov, Kirov, Penza, Magadan regions decided to suspend fees for three months, deferment of payment of fees for the same period of time was introduced in Buryatia. According to him, due to the different epidemiological situation in the regions, different operating modes for carrying out major repairs have been established (this mainly concerns the replacement of utility networks). As of the beginning of May, work was carried out as usual in 42 regions, while in 29 it was partially suspended.

Writing off debts for housing and communal services

Adverse consequences of late payment for housing and communal services

Writing off part of the existing debt for housing and communal services can be done in several ways:

• dividing the amount among all owners of residential premises;
• recourse for collection of payment;
• upon expiration of the statute of limitations.

You can also use installment plans or debt subsidies. It is expected that the Duma will soon pass a law on writing off existing household debts for housing and communal services in 2021.

Payment for housing and communal services according to the statute of limitations

Article number 196 of the Civil Code provides for a general limitation period for payment of utility services, according to which debts can be written off, equal to 3 years, from the date determined by article number 200 of the mentioned Code.

If the debt for housing and communal services is older than 3 years

If the period is more than three years, the apartment owner has the right not to pay debts to utility companies. When payments have not been made for the last 5 years, and the housing company has demanded payment of the debt, the citizen has the right to make deductions for the last 24 months. The first three are forgiven based on the expiration of the legal period.

How to correctly calculate the statute of limitations for paying for housing and communal services

The limitation period is determined by Art. No. 200 Civil Code of Russia.

Supreme Court comments on permission not to pay for housing and communal services

The Plenum of the Supreme Court of the country, held on June 27, 2021, considered issues regarding payment for utility services and issued Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court No. 22 in this case, which allows not to make deductions for housing services in the situations given in the document.

MUP "Vodokanal", based on the results of its work over the past 6 months, revealed an increase in citizens' debts for drinking water received. In this regard, measures were taken to influence debtors, including through the courts. Thus, in relation to 40 residents of the villages of Voronezhskaya, Ladozhskaya, the village of Dvubratsky, the farms of Aleksandrovsky, Argatov, Kalininsky and Bolgov, applications were submitted to the court for the issuance of court orders to collect debts for payment for cold water supply services in the total amount of 435 thousand rubles. And this is just the beginning of working with unscrupulous subscribers. In the near future, applications will be filed with the court to issue court orders against several dozen more defaulters. This also applies to legal entities that avoid concluding contracts with MUP Vodokanal and, accordingly, avoid paying for the water received. Thus, in relation to one of the heads of a peasant farm in the Ust-Labinsk region, documents were prepared for the arbitration court of the Krasnodar Territory to collect a debt for the consumed service in the amount of about 300 thousand rubles. In addition, MUP Vodokanal will not ignore citizens who have made unauthorized connections to water supply networks. Thus, citizen D. from the village of Dvubratsky made a so-called tap into the water supply system and used water for several months, bypassing the meter. The fact of illegal use of a communal resource was recorded by the commission and in the near future the culprit will be sued in the district court in the amount of about 79 thousand rubles. MUP Vodokanal appeals to its subscribers: how long the moratorium on not charging penalties will last is a matter of time. The consumer is obliged to pay for consumed utilities in full and on time! From January 2021, MUP Vodokanal will also be able to collect a penalty (fine, penalty) for untimely and (or) incomplete payment for the provided utility service. In addition to collecting penalties, from January 2021 all resource supply organizations, including MUP Vodokanal, will be able to deal with debtors using already familiar methods - by suspending or limiting the provision of utility services. We ask citizens who have late payments for consumed utilities to pay attention to this! After all, the debt will accumulate, and it will become increasingly difficult to pay it off in the future.

Responsibility for utility debts

Of course, you can’t just not pay rent. Ignoring the rule results in financial or administrative liability.

Consequences

Lack of payments for utilities results in the following unpleasant consequences for the debtor:

• accrual of penalties, which will increase every 1,000 rubles by 28 kopecks daily;
• interruption of hot water supply and other utilities;
• failure by the company to issue the necessary certificates to the tenant before repaying the debt;
• public announcement of the names of debtors to the entire MKD;
• the trial may end in the seizure of property;
• Only citizens living in municipal housing are threatened with eviction.

The tenant or owner also has the right to refuse to carry out scheduled maintenance, but the master can arrive if an emergency situation threatens the neighbors of a persistent defaulter.