Renovation Immigrants in Izmailovo fell into debt a year after the housewarming party

Julia SuntsovaIn

April 2021, the Moscow City Property Department notified Muscovite Natalia Povetkina about the demolition of a five-storey building on 3rd Pryadilnaya Street, 14 bldg. 2. 

Then in the summer, the mayor's office offered a 49-year-old woman with a schoolgirl daughter to move into a new building next door, in her own neighborhood, on Izmailovsky Proezd, 5A. Instead of a two-room apartment in Khrushchev on 45.3 sq.m., they gave a two-room apartment on 60.5 sq.m. with a spacious kitchen, corridor, hallway, isolated rooms, the house itself belonged to the comfort class category - with a good entrance, freight elevator and all related infrastructure benefits.

Natalia was completely satisfied with the option. She examined the proposed apartment, signed a consent for the replacement and inclusion of housing in the subject of the contract, went through the entire documentary and bureaucratic procedure for approving the relocation.

On September 11 last year, Natalia and her daughter moved into a new apartment and rejoiced for exactly a month. With the receipt of the first payment, it became clear where the dog was buried.

Instead of the psychologically familiar 5 thousand for a two-dollar bill from Natalia, they now demand 13-15 thousand rubles a month, and about 2/3 of utility payments fall on the maintenance of the house, territory and infrastructure.

- Of course, I understood that the payment is likely to increase, but not three times! If you pay in full for everything they want, almost all of my pension goes away! – the interlocutor calculates.

Natalia almost immediately began to fight for the separation of personal accounts, so that her apartment would not be charged to the general fund for imposed services, which she would never use. But it didn't work out. According to the woman, after long and exhausting proceedings in the management company, they even threw her in the hearts that, in fact, they say, she should not whine, but be infinitely grateful to Sobyanin - he moved her from a homeless shelter to elite housing!

- I don't use the barrier, I don't have a car (and it's not expected), as well as a parking space. I don't need security and video surveillance either – they won't save my apartment personally if anything happens. We do not go to the playground – the child is 14 years old, English and a private kindergarten for the same reason, too, we will not need. So why can't you refuse all these additional services?

Natalia Povetkina and her 14-year-old daughter live in the care of the state. Natalia herself receives a disability pension, due to asthma she was assigned the 3rd group, she cannot work. After the family has lost their father and husband, payments for the loss of the breadwinner are received, but the guardianship authorities allow them to spend them only on the needs of the child, requesting reporting along with receipts for each purchase made.

Before moving to the comfort class, these funds were, in principle, enough to somehow make ends meet. Now, when almost all the money goes to pay for utilities, Natalia does not know what to live on and how to raise her daughter.

During the year that the Povetkins lived in a new apartment, the management company was changed twice. Rumor has it that the third one will also take over the ambulance – GBU "Evadzh". The latter allegedly plans to lay out gardens on the territory of the house and hire a gardener for a permanent allowance. Payment for his work will also be included in the billing lines.

All the CC of the new house are affiliated with the developer GC PIK: LLC "PIK-Comfort", LLC "PIK-Comfort Sirius", and each, while it still exists, is in a hurry to contribute to the comfort of residents. So there was a round–the–clock security of the residential complex, which costs newcomers 780 rubles every month, a barrier - an average of 1000-1500 rubles per apartment (depending on the quadrature), gates on the territory, including on the playground - an electronic key from which is issued for 1500 rubles. The official lines in the payment are all vaguely referred to as: "maintenance of premises in an apartment building", "maintenance of the adjacent territory and barriers", "maintenance of security systems", "security", "maintenance of parking space", etc.

At the same time, the landline phone was not allowed to be moved to the new housing, and the Internet provider can only be its own, strictly established. "The plot, the pit and communications are our private property, so we will determine who is allowed here and who is not," Natalia retells the explanations of the PEAK.

In December of this year, the owner was given a double New Year's "gift" – two receipts from two different management companies: a debt from the old Pik-Comfort LLC for 9018.63 rubles. and the second - a current payment from the current PIK-COMFORT SIRIUS LLC for 9112.59 kopecks. In addition to these transfers, Natalia pays monthly (!) to resource supply companies in total about 4,000 rubles for electricity, water, sanitation, heat supply, antenna and solid waste removal. Plus the charge for electricity in public areas, which exceeds the charge for electricity in apartments - the management company ignores the residents' demands to install lamps with sensors that respond to movement.

In total, December, if we act according to the established rules, costs Natalia more than 22 thousand rubles – this amount already exceeds the size of her disability pension.

Why the first, long-deceased management company exposes the debt months later, and most importantly, where it originated from, Natalia did not understand. But they demand to repay it very persistently – along with the receipt came a warning about the accrual of penalties in case of non-payment.

However, the surprises did not end there. Natalia received a call from "well-wishers" who are very worried about her debt burden and morale. The man who called did not introduce himself, but, being aware of her difficult life situation and debts, offered a brilliant salvation from all problems, well, as an option: "Do you, Natalia Viktorovna, want to sell your apartment back to the developer?"

- You see, until 2021, I lived quietly in my house, paid directly to the city for electricity, water, heating, without any surcharges and over-commissions, without imposing services. I have never accumulated a penny of rent debt. And what is the result? Against our will, we are evicted from our apartments, transported, moved in with neighbors who generally live on other incomes than we do. And as the majority in the owners' meeting determine for us, too, how the whole house will live. We were held hostage at the peak, in a bondage from which there is no way out. We were just thrown to these business sharks, and no one, not even the mayor's office, wants to help us. I'm going to cry now, I'm sorry. Sometimes you just don't want to live anymore," Natalia says.According to the renovation program, residents from four demolished five-storey buildings in Izmailovo were relocated to the new building of the PEAK on Izmailovsky Proezd, 5a - a total of 280 apartments.

All of them fit into three entrances of the new building (there are 24 entrances in total in the MKD).

There is a huge gap between the so–called "renovation" entrances and the rest of the tenants, primarily in income. Those who settled here of their own free will easily part with 13-15 thousand for utilities, they initially expected that comfort class would cost them about that much. For renovation migrants, such monthly payments are unaffordable.

- There are a lot of pensioners and elderly, bedridden people. Or people like me – single mothers, people with disabilities. Everyone, everyone I talk to from the neighbors, has accumulated debts. At all meetings of homeowners, all renovation apartments vote against new additional fees and services, but we always lose by the number of votes. Two families from my entrance couldn't stand it anymore and sold their apartments," Natalia says.

Neighbors in misfortune submitted collective letters to the Mayor of Moscow, the Head of the Izmailovo Municipal District, to the Moscow City Property Department, to the State Housing Inspectorate, to the Housing Department, to the Prosecutor's Office, the Investigative Committee, and deputies. They asked to allocate all the renovation apartments, assigning them a separate address so that they could choose their own management company. So far, the beating of thresholds has not brought tangible results. And the Moscow Residential Renovation Fund sent a boorish answer at all – residents of renovation apartments make up 1% of those living in the housing complex, so their participation in the general meeting of owners is critically minimal.

Marat Dayanov, lawyer, social activist:- Unfortunately, many residents here are not ready to defend their rights, demand settlements with justification from management companies, go against the "needs of the majority" - meetings of owners, which in the end are often not the needs of the majority, but only imposed services.

It is important to understand that the cost of basic utility tariffs is determined by the regulatory legal act of the subject of the Russian Federation. At the same time, management companies add to the mandatory payments the cost of other services that are not always necessary for the end user. At the same time, these payments are included in the section "maintenance of residential premises", although No. 354 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation does not imply this. Unscrupulous business uses and will use all this passivity of citizens, you need to always keep this in mind, people are new oil for them. For some reason, no one forgets about the obligation to pay utility bills. And no one bothers about the obligation to properly provide services, as well as about the obligation to economically justify the accrual of payments. Residents are not familiar with these concepts, and the management companies themselves do not remember once again. The law prohibits the imposition of any paid services.

Let's analyze what you have listed. The installation of a barrier is a one–time position, as far as I know, today it costs about 40 thousand rubles in the market in Moscow, and the city partially subsidizes their installation, and then fees may be charged monthly - but this is not 1000 rubles, of course, but only 40-60 rubles a month, depending on the number of apartments.

The functioning of the playground cannot be included in the maintenance fee for the territory, their construction and cleaning in Moscow is certainly subsidized by the city, there is a mayor's program "My district".Next, security.

Contracts with private security companies, in 99% of cases, are concluded in such a way that the subject of protection is something that is not strongly connected personally with the tenants, with their apartments and property. For this reason, if something bad happens to the tenant's apartment during his absence - theft, for example, then this guard is not responsible for this in any way, so the question of the real need for such services is really relevant.

The principle of equivalence of housing – old and new (renovation) apartments – in this case, unfortunately, is not applicable. The tariff on housing and communal services is not a component of this concept. In the established practice, the courts, analyzing the principle of equivalence, evaluate and compare exclusively the total and residential area of housing. I'm talking about real judicial practice.

What can I advise residents who are held hostage by management companies? Be patient for a few years. In addition to legally defending their rights, use public methods to draw attention to the problem, for example, using the portal "Our City". Carefully study the regulatory framework, appeal against the officials' unsubscriptions to the victorious, be ready for several judicial instances. Consistency, patience, method, and the law are the best allies in this matter.