What is needed to put an apartment building into operation?

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Commissioning of a residential building is a procedure in which a building that is actually built, but does not yet exist according to documents, legally becomes a real estate property. A positive result depends on the developer and the objectivity of the control and supervisory authorities. To obtain permits, the house must comply with the project declaration, and the developer must comply with the sequence of the legal process algorithm.

Let's figure out which government agencies control the quality of construction and accept the house, what is included in the developer's documentation package, how the delivery of the object and the issuance of keys is going in 2021, and whether shareholders have the right to check the actions of the parties to the delivery and acceptance of the house.

Responsibilities of the developer

Federal Law No. 214-FZ of December 30, 2004 “On participation in shared construction of apartment buildings and other real estate objects...” (hereinafter referred to as Federal Law No. 214-FZ) defines the commissioning of a house as the first and necessary step before transferring apartments to the owners (h 2 Article 8). This algorithm is not just a set of steps, but a clear legal mechanism. Its procedure for the developer and the host party is established by the Town Planning Code of the Russian Federation (Article 55).

The key points of action for putting a house into operation are as follows:

1. Carry out a full range of engineering and construction work provided for by the construction permit and design documentation of the apartment building (hereinafter referred to as the MKD). We are talking about the ability to fully use the functionality of the building and ensure the safety of residents. The law does not prohibit carrying out measures to improve the courtyard area later.
2. Obtain from resource suppliers (electricity, gas, water, heat) a conclusion on the compliance of communications with technical conditions and standards.
3. Conduct the required engineering and technical tests of the building's load-bearing structures and communications, recording the results. It is necessary to check the energy efficiency indicators of the facility, its equipment with the required metering devices, light insolation of residential premises, air exchange and ventilation.
4. Approve the technical passport of the real estate property (for capital construction projects, the document must comply with the norms of Federal Law dated July 13, 2015 No. 218-FZ “On State Registration of Real Estate”). After resolving the issue, the building should be registered in the cadastral register.
5. In the urban planning department of the municipal administration, register a postal address for the apartment building. Before this, the house had a construction address, which determined the location of the construction work.

If all the conditions are met, a package of documents is collected , after which the developer applies to the control and supervisory authorities. As stated in paragraph 2 of Art. 55 Civil Code of the Russian Federation, these are government agencies that issued permission for construction work. In the case of apartment buildings, the transfer into operation is carried out through the executive bodies of state power of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation or municipality.

Required documents

The developer must document the legality of the activity, the legality of construction, compliance with technical standards and the safety of housing in operation.

To obtain permission to put into operation an apartment building, you will need the documents established by clause 3 of Art. 55 GrK RF:

• statement;
• title documents for the land plot (lease agreement with the land owner, Rosreestr certificates of ownership or confirmation of other legal forms of ownership);
• permission for the construction of an apartment building;
• a town planning plan agreed with the administration with the approved location of the property;
• land plot plan;
• technical plan of an apartment building as a capital construction project;
• layout diagrams of intra-apartment and communal communications;
• if the developer worked under a construction contract - an act of acceptance of the object by the second party;
• certificate of compliance of the building with the technical requirements of GOSTs, regulations, federal standards (based on the results of commission tests);
• conclusion on the compliance of the house with project documentation, energy efficiency standards, and equipment with meters for metering consumed resources.

Reference. The main list is not exhaustive. To take into account all the characteristics of the object and register it with the cadastral register, the receiving party may require other papers.

When collecting documents, the law suppresses the “amateur activity” of executive bodies of state power . The list of additions and grounds for their provision is established by the Government of the Russian Federation - clause 4 of Art. 55.

The complexity of the delivery procedure also lies in the fact that before the start of construction, the company mainly has permits and statutory documentation on hand. The developer must draw up acts, technical examinations and conclusions after completing a certain stage of work.

What documents are needed to register an apartment in the cadastral register?

In order to register an apartment with the cadastral register, you will need to fill out a special application and prepare several documents. This is the owner’s passport, technical passport of the apartment and documents that are the basis for state cadastral registration. These include a purchase and sale agreement (donation, exchange), a court decision, a will, a certificate of inheritance, etc. A complete list of necessary documents and the requirements for them can be found on the Rosreestr website.

The procedure for putting the house into operation

The main stages of putting a house into operation:

1. Completion of construction and installation work, carrying out all communications by the appointed date of acceptance of the building.
2. Improvement of adjacent territories, courtyards, street and road networks. In practice, the commission requires this step to a minimum, turning a blind eye to a lot of shortcomings.
3. Conclusion of contracts for operation/maintenance of resource networks (water supply, heat supply, gas supply, electricity supply, sewerage networks).
4. Inspection of the building by BTI technicians/engineers: measurements of the areas of residential premises and common areas. Based on the data received, technical passports of the building and apartments are drawn up.
5. Work of the acceptance committee on site with travel to the construction site. A competent decision is made based on the submitted package of documents. If the verdict is positive, the house is put into operation. Successful completion of construction is supported by the issuance to the developer of a conclusion on the compliance of the facility with design and technical conditions and permission to put the facility into operation. After receiving the second document, the developer begins transferring apartments to shareholders.

Interesting things on the site:

How to buy an apartment in a new building from a developer: procedure

How to accept an apartment from a developer

Purchasing housing: new building or secondary?

Responsibility for illegal entry

If violations are detected, the construction of the building is suspended . The reasons are established in Art. 55 GrK RF:

• an incomplete package of documents, the presence of expired papers or with signs of forgery;
• non-compliance of the building with building codes and technical regulations;
• discrepancy between the parameters of the finished building and the design;
• lack of rights to a land plot, discrepancy between the permitted use of land and the category of the building.

The developer is given time to eliminate defects . It doesn’t happen often, but it happens that unscrupulous developers move owners even into an unaccepted building and “agree” to accept a house with violations.

If unlawful commissioning is detected, penalties are imposed on the guilty persons (Article 9.5 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation). In a number of cases, for government officials, the illegal issuance of permits for the operation of apartment buildings is fraught with criminal liability under Part 1 of Art. 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (abuse of official powers). Depending on the nature of the violations, the article provides for sanctions ranging from a fine of 80,000 rubles to actual imprisonment for up to four years.

The timing of what events in new buildings are announced by analysts

Let's start with the fact that for each new building there is not one, but two deadlines associated with the completion of work on the facility.

• The first period is the commissioning period , when the new building receives the RVE (permission to commission). At this point, all construction work in the house has already been completed, engineering communications are connected and functioning, and Mosgostroynadzor (the agency that controls the quality of construction in Moscow) confirmed that the new building was built strictly according to the project and in compliance with all technical regulations.
• The second term is the term for transferring apartments to shareholders . It means the moment from which shareholders are invited to accept apartments in an already built building, sign the transfer deed and receive the keys. It occurs after commissioning, and how much time passes between these dates depends on the developer.

In other words, commissioning is the moment by which all physical work in the house is completely completed, and the transfer of apartments is the date by which shared construction in which the shareholders invested is completed.

Karina Malkhasyan from Moskomstroyinvest speaks about the second term, and the representative of Dom.rf speaks about the first.

Even if the developer does not have time to deliver the new building on time, in the time that is still available before the promised start of handing over the keys to the shareholders, he can correct all the shortcomings, obtain permission to put it into operation and begin issuing keys strictly on the originally specified dates. Therefore, delays in the opening of houses occur more often than shifts in the start of issuing keys.

Exactly how often, can be seen from the statistics of Dom.rf and Moskomstroyinvest. In 2021, 189 new buildings in the capital had their commissioning deadlines postponed, and the deadlines for the transfer of apartments were violated only in 67 objects.

That is, out of every three developers who did not manage to complete the houses on time, two were able to quickly solve this problem and did not violate their obligations to the shareholders.

Further actions

Within three days after receiving permits, the state commission sends all information on the new facility to the federal construction supervision authorities.

The apartment building is registered with the state and receives cadastral and technical passports as a capital construction project. An agreement is concluded with the management company for the provision of services for the repair and maintenance of apartment buildings.

Reference. According to the law, it is possible for shared owners to begin registering apartments only after successful completion and registration of the house in the cadastral register.

The developer notifies the shareholders in writing about the acceptance of the house and draws up a schedule for issuing keys:

• the owner must inspect the premises and ensure the quality of the work, check the compliance of the result with the project;
• if there are deficiencies, the developer is obliged to eliminate them;
• the parties sign the apartment acceptance certificate;
• the legal owner remains to register the property rights in Rosreestr.

Only after completion of all formalities with the transfer of apartments, the owner has the right to begin arrangement of housing . According to Federal Law No. 214-FZ, a new property is subject to warranty service for five years from the date of commissioning.

What is important to consider

Requirements for the duration of each stage:

• the company indicates the time of completion of the building accurate to the quarter of a particular year;
• The law allows another 3-6 months for the transfer of keys (the share participation agreement usually does not indicate specific dates, but the duration in months).

If the terms fixed by the contract are violated, the developer responds in rubles . For each day of delay, a penalty is charged. Its size is calculated by multiplying the cost of housing according to the DDU by 1/150 of the Central Bank refinancing rate.

As part of the agreement, the developer has the right to adjust the deadlines for opening the house and handing over the keys without additional notification to the shareholders.

Case Study:

1. The DDU states that the facility is scheduled to be commissioned in the fourth quarter of 2019. It is perfectly legal for the home transfer date to fall in October, November or December.
2. According to the agreement, the transfer of apartments is carried out within three months after the new building is put into operation. This period must be counted from the actual date of receipt of permission to enter.
3. Let the landmark date for signing the act by the state commission be November 15th. Then all shareholders will become owners of apartments from November 15, 2019 to February 15, 2020. After accepting the apartment, the owners begin the individual stage of registration of residential real estate.

Karina Malkhasyan, Deputy Chairman of Moskomstroyinvest:

“The share of capital projects for which an extension of the deadline for handing over keys was recorded last year was only 9.5%. Out of 698 projects, the deadlines for 67 were postponed. In most cases, the transfer deadlines were postponed for a short period.”

Some Telegram channels and specialized groups of social networks doubted the correctness of this data. But the fact is that a week earlier, Nikita Belousov, deputy head of the Dom.rf analytical center, reported that in Moscow, cases of postponement of commissioning deadlines had increased by 36% over the year and affected 189 houses.

That is, the indicators are completely different. But is there a contradiction here? Let's figure it out.

Difference between commissioning and key handover

Acceptance of the house and handing over the keys to the owners are independent procedures . Their difference is in a legal sense. The most serious stage is the commissioning of the facility - this is what this means for the parties to the DDU:

• successful completion of construction and transition of the house from the category of new building to residential real estate;
• compliance of the building with technical standards, its functionality and safety for residents;
• complete readiness of the building for occupancy and operation.

Handing over keys to shareholders is not just a technical stage of handing over and acceptance of an object . From the moment of receiving permanent access to the home, the apartment is considered to be actually transferred to the owner. Now he is fully responsible for the technical condition and integrity of the facility.

Useful video

Build a house, get permission, complete all the documentation. And this is not the entire list of actions that the developer will have to perform. To obtain a house commissioning certificate, you will need to go through a lengthy procedure.

For a private residential building, everything will be done by the owner, but in the case of an apartment, a lot falls on the shoulders of the developer.

To know how to put a constructed facility into operation and what to do about the house being commissioned, watch the video below.

What is GASN

The construction of apartment buildings is controlled by the state through the bodies of the State Architectural and Construction Supervision (GASN/GSN). Examination of design documentation, approval of construction permits, direct control of work, as well as expert assessment of the result - all this is under the jurisdiction of GASN.

An independent examination of GASN precedes the acceptance of a new building:

• the development company notifies GASN about the completion of construction;
• a state commission is formed from representatives of the developer, SES, Gospozhnadzor, Stroynadzor, ecologists, and the department of architecture of the municipality;
• experts go to inspect the property (period of seven days after receiving information from the developer);
• certificates of compliance of the house with project documentation and final inspection are signed.

After the GASN assessment, the developer collects documents and prepares to put the house into operation . The law does not prohibit representatives of the State Tax Service from coming to inspect the site without notifying the construction company and issuing a number of instructions. In practice, a sudden visit results in a long process of handing over the apartment building and worries for the shareholders (who can only wait for the shortcomings to be corrected).

The participation of equity holders in the process of state acceptance of new buildings is not provided for by law . This is logical, because a private person inspects an apartment individually and, based on the results of an initial acquaintance with the property, has the right to draw up a claim act with a list of deficiencies and a requirement to eliminate them (Part 5, Article 8 of Federal Law No. 214-FZ).

If gross deficiencies are discovered that make normal living in the house impossible, or the developer refuses to eliminate the violations on time, the issue should be resolved in court. Moreover, the shareholder may refuse to sign the transfer deed.

Legislative aspect

The fact that the house should be put into operation must be stipulated in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. As well as certain issues related to the design features of materials, they are regulated by Federal Law No. 191 “On the implementation of urban planning standards.”

But you also need to take into account that in 2021 there are some innovations that, for example, prohibit the use of an object until statements about it are included in the Unified State Register of Real Estate.

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How to find out who the developer of the house is

Sometimes a number of construction companies or contractors operate under the developer’s marketing banner . This form is common among large players in the construction market who are building several projects at once. This is absolutely normal.

It’s worse if in the past there were long-term construction projects and misappropriation of shareholders’ funds, criminal cases with amnesties for them. Such developers can be “reborn” under the guise of affiliated legal entities.

You can find out exactly who performed the work in the project documentation at the construction address of the project. These papers are freely available on the company's official website. Its employees are required to provide such information upon the buyer’s first request.

Information about the developer at the address can also be obtained through a search in Internet services . Significant information about the date of registration of the developer, the general director, related companies, and the results of financial activities can be easily obtained in the register of legal entities using the TIN/OGRN.