Deportation for renovation: the new law will allow to evict Muscovites from their apartments

Irina Mishina

The procedure of relocation for renovation will now take place completely and virtually without the right of appeal.

Eviction… «in order to support the construction industry»

The bill on making appropriate amendments to the Law on the Status of the capital, which is called the Law on Renovation, has already passed all readings in the State Duma and signed by the president.

«Now a citizen must sign a corresponding contract within 30 days, vacate the old residential premises and register ownership of the new one in the Federal Register. In case of violation of the term, a citizen will be forced to commit these actions through the court», — explained Vyacheslav Klimov, a lawyer at the Asterisk law office.

The deadline for submitting an application for compensation for an old apartment or for providing the owner with a new apartment instead of an equivalent one — corresponding to the total area and number of rooms is also reduced. Instead of 30 days, property owners have only 20 days left for this procedure. How to appeal the decision during this time, if 30 days are allowed for official answers in state structures, is a big question.

So now you have a month, comrades internally displaced persons, to sweep out of the house with all your belongings, children and household members. And you don't want to because of poor—quality renovation housing — so the court, bailiffs and forced eviction.

In the explanatory note, the authors of the bill are Peter Tolstoy, Irina Belykh, Svetlana Razvorotneva and Tatiana Butskaya — they wrote that the document was developed in order to support the construction industry. The parliamentarians added that apartment buildings were included in the renovation program «solely on the basis of the will of the owners.»

Well, there are a great many questions about the «personal expression of will».

«They broke into the apartment, rummaged through things…»

Elena Sergeevna is a disabled person of group 2, lives in Textile workers. She was forcibly relocated from the house 25-a on Artyukhina Street to the house 24 building 1 on the same Artyukhina Street. This house was built before the renovation program and does not meet the standards that are provided for the disabled, which can be seen as a violation of the rights of the disabled. But the disabled woman was actually deported from her apartment to a new address.

«They moved me by court, broke into the apartment, a whole horde. Bailiffs, janitors, rummaged through my things, in my underwear, decided for me what to pack and what not. It was in the evening, I didn't have time to really get dressed, I was in just a light robe. They didn't even pack all my things into the car, the sofa and the mirror were left in the old apartment at all, the door was sealed into it, they didn't let me return. After that I had a stroke… I was forced to move to a smaller apartment compared to the one I had all my life, and as a disabled person I can't even really go out on the balcony and use the bathroom there. It's just a crime, how the resettlement takes place», — Elena Sergeevna told NI.

But the authors of the new law believe that all this is for the benefit of unconscious citizens, which they simply do not realize.

«Opinions that these amendments infringe on the interests of the resettled citizens are untenable. The fact is that the Moscow renovation program includes not only the construction of houses, but also a huge program of work with the population. Even at the construction stage of the house, citizens know the conditions of relocation and relocation», — Deputy Svetlana Razvorotneva, the initiator of the law, believes.

However, according to statistics, only 30% of those relocated for renovation are satisfied with their apartments. Some people start a long and painful litigation for housing.

Illiquid housing — renovation

«We were offered an apartment for renovation in the residential complex at the address Shchelkovskoe highway, building 90. 1. I doubt that this house is habitable at all: in October, its warranty period ends, and if some kind of breakdown or malfunction happens, no one will fix it, everything is at their own expense», — says Natalia Shilova. — Plus the house is right next to a three-lane highway, smoke, fumes, noise. Housing is illiquid, no one wanted to move in there, and the developer gave this residential complex to the city. And now they are moving there for renovation… I want to say that reducing the period of relocation for renovation to 30 days is absurd. During this time, you will not have time to get answers from official authorities: 30 days are allowed for an answer. It seems that all this is done on purpose so that people could not defend their rights and seek help. And in 30 days — the court and eviction with bailiffs. And where is the legality here? Where are human rights?».

It is worth noting that recently the number of lawsuits for relocation for renovation has increased dramatically, and the courts actually stamp their decisions, in 99% of cases, refusals. This is also recognized by lawyers.

«Judicial acts on disputed cases are very formal and typical. It is quite possible to expect an increase in judicial coercion to resettlement due to a decrease in the terms of voluntary consent to compensation / resettlement, as a result, the burden on the judicial system and the pattern of decisions made», — said lawyer Alan Yusufov.

However, the initiators of the law did not hide that it was introduced in the interests of the construction lobby. One of the authors of the bill — Deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Communal Services Svetlana Razvorotneva — emphasized that the existing regulations were changed in order to speed up the renovation program. And no one is at all interested in a person who finds himself in the clutches of the courts, losing almost the most expensive thing he has — housing.

The story of Mary and Vitaly Popov is a cross between a horror film and a drama. This young family moved into a communal apartment in Stalinka a few years ago at the address ul. Lublin, 125. We took out several mortgages to settle a communal apartment and get a separate apartment, then we took out a mortgage for repairs, everything was safely completed, and then — like a snow on the head, a notice of eviction for renovation.

«The most interesting thing is that our house is not under demolition, for what purposes our chic „Stalinka“ of the 34th year of construction is not clear. Moreover, they evict us from an apartment that was given to us by investing huge funds… Who will get all this now? We would agree to move to a normal place, but we are being relocated to some fields, to the residential complex „Lublin Park“, which in principle was not built for renovation, but no one buys apartments in it. There is already a fungus, mold, a view of the industrial zone… According to the new law, we can now be moved there simply by eviction, by court. We worked, invested a lot of money in this apartment, and now we will be thrown out of it within a month by a court decision. Where are human rights here?», — Maria Popova is indignant.

About the residential complex «Lublin Park», by the way, «NI» has already been written. These are houses of horror, where homeless people and convicts are found, and next to it is a dump with toxic waste.

Elena, a resident of house 16 on Krasnodarskaya street: «There are moments in the new house that can be fixed — insufficient quality repairs, black mold, a non-working elevator. But there are things that cannot be fixed. Nearby there is a women's prison, the Lyublino-Sortirovochnaya station, that is, you will have to live under the sound of wheels, plus a large electrical substation under the windows and a social assistance center for people without a fixed place of residence. But this is not the worst thing: at a distance of 3-4 km there are aeration fields and a waste incineration plant. That is, according to the rose of the winds, everything will arrive at this LCD. In addition, this residential complex was built on the territory of a foundry and mechanical plant, which was then used as a waste dump. And houses were built on this land!»

In this residential complex, people from a comfortable apartment with a hard-won repair and mortgage will be relocated by force…

Eviction instead of relocation

The legal community is already sounding the alarm about the new legislative norm related to accelerated relocation for renovation.

«Citizens are simply not allowed to wake up and realize that they will be pushed out of their own homes in a conveyor mode. The courts en masse make decisions on the claims of the department, where immediate execution is prescribed, without waiting for an appeal. Roughly speaking, bailiffs can come for you in a few days after the court decision is ready. But in some cases, people could simply miss the letter or not receive it», — lawyer Stanislav Stankevich told NI.

And there are more and more such cases. Consciously or by mistake, the courts are increasingly depriving people of property who could not have known about it at all.

«The courts, making such decisions, write about immediate eviction, without delving into the circumstances. In my practice, there was an enchanting case when a serviceman who was on military service was deprived of housing by the court, because he did not know anything, being far from Moscow. And after all, people do not know where they are being evicted to the last, in fact, we are talking about deportation», — the lawyer believes.

If you look at how the renovation program is being implemented in Moscow, a simple conclusion suggests itself: all this was started to obtain large plots of land provided with communications and social infrastructure by the construction complex. And apartment owners from houses undergoing renovation are moved to the most inconvenient, illiquid places. Eviction often goes to places where the developer could not sell housing. Now this relocation will actually result in eviction without the right of appeal and forced deportation. Moreover, all this will happen not just like that, but according to the law.

«Opinions that these amendments infringe on the interests of the resettled citizens are untenable. The fact is that the Moscow renovation program includes not only the construction of houses, but also a huge program of work with the population. Even at the stage of building a house, citizens know the conditions of relocation and relocation», — Deputy Svetlana Razvorotneva, the initiator of the law, believes.

The story of Mary and Vitaly Popov is a cross between a horror film and a drama. This young family moved into a communal apartment in Stalinka a few years ago at the address ul. Lublin, 125. We took out several mortgages to settle a communal apartment and get a separate apartment, then we took a mortgage for repairs, everything was safely completed, and then — like a snow on the head, a notice of eviction for renovation.

In this residential complex, people from a comfortable apartment with a hard-won repair and a mortgage will be relocated virtually by force…