Reasons why courts do not recognize houses as blocked
The courts share a common view on what features a house must have in order to be considered blocked. Thus, the Fourth Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction, like the Supreme Court of the Republic of Karelia, emphasized that the presence of independent exits to a land plot is not the only criterion for classifying the residential premises as part of a house (definition in case No. 88 - 7715/21).
The court, in cassation proceedings, considered the claim of the owner of an apartment in a one-story residential building. The property owner asked to recognize the house as blocked. Previously, the courts of first and appellate instances rejected the claim. The courts recognized that the plaintiff did not provide evidence of a violation of his rights. At the same time, the plaintiff did not prove that the allocated premises are a separate section of the block building.
The Court of Cassation cited the characteristics of a residential building in a blocked development with reference to the Town Planning Code: • number of floors - no more than three; • consists of several blocks (no more than ten); • each block is intended for single-family residence, has a common wall (common walls) without openings with the adjacent block or adjacent blocks; • located on a separate plot of land; • • has access to public territory (part 2 of article 49).
A detailed description of the house in a blocked development is also given in SP 55.13330.2016. This is a development that includes two or more houses attached to each other, each of which has direct access to a separate apartment plot. A section (block) is considered to be a residential block with independent engineering systems and individual connections to external networks. It does not share attics, undergrounds, communication shafts, auxiliary premises, external entrances, or premises located above or below other residential blocks with neighboring residential blocks.
The court emphasized: • The plaintiff did not prove that it is technically possible to divide the house into several autonomous residential units. • Cadastral registration is carried out by the federal executive body and its territorial bodies.
The court is not a technical accounting body. The judicial body does not have the right to decide the issue of classifying residential real estate as one type or another and to replace the bodies authorized for this, to which the plaintiff did not apply and whose actions did not challenge.
Take and share? If there are two entrances to a house, is it already a townhouse?
Article on the topic
What is a capital structure?
And this is at the height of the construction season.
Imagine that you live alone in an individual residential building with several rooms and a large kitchen. For one person, perhaps, there is too much space. In this hypothetical situation, you have a daughter living with her husband and small child in a rented apartment. You decide to invite them to your place and are ready to give them part of the house, while you would like to retain your personal space. To do this, you need to block access from one half of the house to the other and build a second entrance to the building, in other words, make two smaller houses out of one large house. Such a structure is called a blocked residential building.
Blocked residential building - a residential building consisting of two or more apartments or two or more apartments and auxiliary premises, each of which has an entrance directly from the local area. (Housing Code of the Republic of Belarus)
This building system is widespread in the UK. There, several houses connected to each other by a common wall or walls, standing in a line, are called townhouses.
This option is convenient if the size of your house allows you to accommodate another family. And the redevelopment costs are small. Or rather, they were small until recently.
New standards
On April 1, 2014, Standard of the Republic of Belarus 2331-2014 “Buildings and structures. Classification. Basic provisions”, by which blocked residential buildings are classified as high, fourth, class of complexity. In fact, they are equivalent to apartment buildings.
Multi-apartment residential building - a residential building consisting of auxiliary premises, as well as two or more apartments, each of which has an entrance from the auxiliary premises.
It turned out that if previously the developer could independently reconstruct blocked and single-apartment residential buildings up to two floors high (clause 12 of Chapter 3 of the Regulations on the procedure for the reconstruction of multi-apartment, blocked and single-apartment residential buildings), now it is prohibited to continue construction until the conclusion of the state examination of the design and estimate documentation .
“An elderly woman who is going to reconstruct her individual house and the developer of a high-rise building now need to prepare the same package of documents,” summarizes designer from the Belarusian capital Olga VECHER . — Designers refuse to submit them for examination, since to do this now it is necessary to carry out the project in a much larger volume and, accordingly, at a higher cost, which we are not willing to pay. The main thing is that we no longer have the right to reconstruct (build) houses on our own - only under a contract with a certified organization, with the involvement of Gosstroynadzor.
Expertise
For comment, AiF turned to Marina PIVOVARCHIK, deputy head of the department - head of the department of architecture and urban planning of the architecture and construction department of the Zavodsky district administration.
— Today, in the territory of the Zavodsky district of Minsk alone there are more than 50% of the constructed and reconstructed blocked residential buildings. Until now, established practice classified individual residential buildings with a height of up to 2 floors as the 3rd level of responsibility. The assignment of an object to a specific level of responsibility was determined by the designer in agreement with the customer. This circumstance did not require an examination of the design documentation, and the construction was carried out at the expense of the developer’s own funds without the involvement of a contractor.
Currently, when classifying all blocked residential buildings as 4th class of complexity, a number of problems arise for the developer. Namely: the need to undergo an examination of project documentation, which requires a longer period of time; development of documentation in full, starting with a technical report on the reliability of load-bearing structures during the reconstruction of buildings, which entails an increase in design time and cost of design documentation.
According to the expert, small design organizations and individual entrepreneurs providing services in this industry refuse to develop documentation for the reconstruction and construction of blocked residential buildings. Developers are forced to turn to design institutes, where the cost of developing design documentation is much higher. This causes discontent among the population and a flood of complaints.
In addition, blocked residential buildings also include those converted into two-apartment one-story single-apartment buildings, where the reconstruction project will, for example, include laying a doorway, equipping a kitchen and building an entrance vestibule, or reconstructing one of the apartments in a blocked residential building in terms of constructing a one-story extension with bathroom equipment. And there are many such examples. With minimal material and time costs for construction, the requirements for the development and examination of documentation for such blocked residential buildings are standard. The consequence will be an increase in the number of unauthorized extensions and refurbishments, which are sometimes very difficult to track.
Safety
For what purpose were the innovations implemented? AIF made an official request to the Ministry of Architecture and Construction of the Republic of Belarus. The answer contains the following explanation:
“In accordance with STB 2331-2014, blocked residential buildings are classified as buildings of the fourth class of complexity (K-4) based on ensuring the safety requirements of the people living in them and the surrounding population from peacetime emergencies (fire, gas explosion, collapse of load-bearing structures, accident and etc.)".
As an explanation, it was stated: “As life experience shows, blocked residential buildings are built for members of different families, and due to some circumstances (sale of property, death of the homeowner, etc.) they are often inhabited not by relatives, but by strangers, people different social affiliations."
Specialists from the Ministry of Construction and Architecture emphasized that the ministry “constantly analyzes the practice of applying existing technical regulatory legal acts in the field of architecture and construction...”
According to the latest data, the Ministry has prepared an amendment to STB 2331-2014 regarding the classification of blocked residential buildings as buildings of the fifth complexity class (K-5), which, in accordance with the procedure established by law, is undergoing the approval procedure with government authorities. For example: the fifth class of complexity includes single-family residential buildings up to seven meters high. Consequently, the construction and reconstruction procedure will still be simplified?
“A blocked house may include two apartments, or maybe seven apartments,” Vitaly SHEVCHENKO, head of the design organization, tells AiF. — There are many options, and in some cases, indeed, there is a need for more strict control of the reconstruction or construction procedure. In our country, regardless of the complexity of the structure, all blocked residential buildings were classified en masse as high, fourth, class of complexity. A reasonable approach is needed here. For example, in Lithuania, a two-flat house can be designed with a reduced level of responsibility up to a certain area. If the area is larger, we are talking about a higher level of responsibility.
Maxim SERGEENKO
Important! From the above solutions, some conclusions can be drawn.
If it becomes necessary to recognize a house as blocked, the first step should be to contact the cadastral registration authorities, and not to the court. They are the ones who classify real estate as one type or another. In the event of an unlawful refusal, you will have to collect evidence that there is a technical possibility for the autonomous existence of each section in the house and appeal the unlawful refusal in court. It cannot be assumed that independent access to land plots will be sufficient to satisfy the claim.
Registration of property and main options for legalization
Options for legalizing a house in a blocked building:
- Through the registration administrative body - in some settlements the functions of the registration body are performed by the local administration.
- State division of the BTI - to register a new property, you must provide the body with a technical passport for the building and a certificate of assignment of a postal address. The right of ownership of the real estate property is immediately registered - for this you need to write an application, provide a cadastral passport and documents for the land, a registration certificate for the house, a passport and tax identification number, and a receipt for payment of the state duty.
- Through a lawsuit. This method is used in controversial situations requiring legal regulation.
If a house in a blocked building was erected without a building permit, you should file a claim in court to legitimize the constructed object and register it in the cadastral register.
Examples of facades of houses of blocked development.
Management of houses in blocked development
Managing a block-type house is fundamentally different from a similar mechanism for managing an apartment building. The absence of common property in houses of blocked development eliminates the requirement to maintain a single object by choosing one of the forms of its management.
However, in order to streamline the conditions for the provision of a number of public services or the improvement of a single local area, block owners have the right to enter into a single agreement with a service company according to rules similar to the choice of management companies.
Since such a structure consists of separate units, house maintenance can be carried out according to the rules for the operation of private residential buildings, when each owner decides on the need to repair his block.
If repairs or reconstruction of common building structures are required, it will be necessary to obtain the consent of the remaining owners of adjacent plots.
Management of a common land plot, if the rights to it are not delimited between the residents of the sections, will be carried out according to the rules of common joint ownership. The presence of delimited rights also does not exclude the need to take into account the interests of neighbors (for example, when formalizing various encumbrances and easements).
Registration and registration
To ensure that unforeseen hiccups do not arise during the registration and registration of the erected structure, the procedure for registering a land plot must be fully completed. To do this you need to go through the following steps:
- information about future construction is included in the urban planning plan;
- the relevant authorities issue a permit for the construction of a residential building;
- cadastral services carry out the surveying procedure and delineate the boundaries of the site for construction, mark the boundaries beyond which it is impossible to go, draw up a boundary plan reflecting the location, shape and area of the site;
- The final stage is registration of the house as a real estate object with a plot of land in the cadastral chamber.
How to conclude a contract for the rental of residential premises? Rules and features of the document at the link.
What laws of the Russian Federation regulate rights?
Determining the conditions for obtaining permits for construction, commissioning and use of it for the settlement of citizens is regulated by the following regulations:
- Town Planning Code of the Russian Federation;
- Housing Code of the Russian Federation;
- Federal Law No. 218-FZ;
- Federal Law No. 161-FZ;
- Land Code of the Russian Federation;
- by-laws of relevant ministries and departments regarding the allocation of land plots for a residential building of blocked development.
Most regulations regulating legal relations in the construction of such facilities are aimed at determining the conditions for the provision of land plots and registration of the owners' rights to a share in the facility.
In terms of recognizing a house as a house in a blocked development, there are still legal gaps that can only be determined using the judicial practice of the highest courts.
