"A-residence": an incomplete construction over which the rich cry

Interest holders are afraid to remain without housing and without money.

Since last spring, at the A-residence construction site at Sadovnicheskaya Street, ow. 82 little has changed. Unfinished with monolithic structures stands without walls and without a roof.

- In 2017, I bought apartments for myself, my sister and mother. The initial payment was agreed - at least 40%, and then - phased payment. In total, I have already invested 200 million rubles, which is 85% of the final cost, ”says Timur D.

Premium residences are a five-minute drive from the Kremlin. Advertising called for the purchase of luxury housing at the stage of the pit, "before the price increase."

The complex began to be built by the Cypriot company Avrasis-Limited. A year later, the construction management passed to O1 Properties ("leader in the construction of commercial real estate"). Both subsidiaries were part of the O1 Group holding - Boris Mints, a billionaire from the Forbes-200 list.

- I did not have any suspicions at the very beginning. By that time, the practice of working with similar objects was already established on the market. Brokers said that with the documents at the object everything is in order. The first persons of the holding spoke with us. In 2018, when the first reorganization of the developer began, Mints's confidant, the former general director of O1 Properties Alexander Ostrovsky personally shook my hand, looked into my eyes, gave a gentleman's word that everything would be fine, and urged me to cooperate further. I contributed another 40 million rubles, and a week later he stopped picking up the phone. Construction did not resume, says Timur D.

In May 2018, Mintz and his sons left Russia, leaving for London. Since January this year, a businessman has been on the international wanted list in a case of embezzlement of other people's property; the Basmanny court of Moscow sanctioned his arrest in absentia.

Since then, A-residence (“ideal life in the historical center of Moscow”) has a reputation for long-term construction, and interest holders are trying to understand what they should do now. All agreements with them have already expired.

Over the past three years, various representatives from O1 Group have come to negotiations with customers. They always enthusiastically assure that the apartments will be completed, only the contractors are called new each time and the deadlines endlessly shift.

- We have already lost count, remembering how many offices came to “save” us. Esta Construction, O1 Properties, RWB development & asset management, City Development and so on. Right now, it seems, they are preparing a new legal entity again. But this is all - the same people sitting in the same office, in the same positions, these are all branches of one giant O1 Group. Crushing with the constant change of legal entities' names is necessary only for juggling assets. Every year a new team comes and says: “But we don’t know what the previous management did with your money, so go to them and ask them. ” Three years of exhausting negotiations and tons of correspondence. We have already appealed to all kinds of authorities. It seems that we are alone with our problem. But we ask that we’re a very simple thing: conclude a DDU with us, as guaranteed, or return the money, ” Roman Ts.

According to the official response of the prosecutor’s office, with legal entities at a construction site and, it’s true, sheer mess:

“01/20/2020 the construction site was transferred to City Development LLC. Earlier, the general contractor was the representative office of Ant Yapi Sanayi Be Tijaret Anonymous Shirketi JSC. At present, the agreement has been terminated. AVRASIS LIMITED LLC has concluded a general contract with City Development LLC. The contract for performing the functions of a technical customer has been concluded with City Developer LLC, ”says the response of the supervisory authority.

However, the change of legal entities does not help much to promote construction.

At the end of 2019, after the release of the plot about a long-term construction on the federal channel, the management of O1 Properties met with concerned equity holders.

- At the meeting there was a new O1 Properties team : Alexander Uritsky, head of the financial control and audit department of O1 Properties , lawyer Artem Ivanov and sales director Alexander Zubkov . They have assured that the expired contracts in no way be infringed upon the rights of that apartment and th e Options give us in full, as the buying that concerns about double sales ene nothing confirmed, - says Timur.

The managers of O1 Properties persuaded people not to go to court.

“Go to action, and here everything will fall. It’s just ironic [it will be], you can write it down, ” said Alexander Uritsky at a meeting with real estate investors .

People nevertheless went to court.

The complexity of the situation is that the developer sold the apartments in "A-residence" to customers under preliminary share agreements (PDDU). Unlike shared participation agreements (DDUs), this type of written agreement is not registered with the Federal Registration Service and does not fall under the guarantees of the Federal Law “On participation in shared construction of apartment buildings and other real estate . PDDU only implies the obligation of the developer in the future to conclude an Equity Agreement on certain conditions. As verification shows, a project declaration for the construction of A-residence was not developed, a conclusion on the compliance of the developer with this project declaration by Moskomstroyinvest was not issued.

Despite this, 135 citizens and legal entities signed a preliminary agreement with Avrasis Limited and immediately paid an advance payment of 30% -100% to the cost of future acquisitions.

⁃ The estate agency Esta-tet, which was entrusted with the sale of apartments, acted briskly. Agents - trained negotiators - convinced that it is necessary to make the largest possible down payment, best of all - immediately 100% of the amount, without installments. They called it a guarantee fee and said that the entry prices to the project are significantly lower than the market in this area, and the longer the pull, the more expensive, ”says Lilia D.

When the timing of the transfer of real estate began to come, buyers were asked to sign additional agreements on the extension of construction (this removes the obligation on the developer to pay fines and late fees), and people agreed.

In the meantime, clients ’PDUs began to expire, but Avrasis Limited was in no hurry to transform preliminary agreements into main agreements.

Interest holders will try to force the developer to conclude a basic contract with them through the court, but the first court decision was not in their favor.

Marat R. appealed to the Zamoskvoretsky District Court first. He provided the court with notifications of requests sent to the developer in advance to conclude the main contract with him, however, no response steps were taken from the company.

On the date agreed upon by the contract, April 30, the authorized plaintiffs (lawyers) arrived at Avrasis Limited to conclude the contract in the interests of Rasulov, but there were no representatives of the developer in the building. Representatives of the plaintiff’s side drew up an act of non-appearance of the developer, however, the court did not evaluate this evidence - Judge Maria Patyk noted that the written agreement between Rasulov and the lawyers was not notarized.

Representative of Avrasis Limited, part-time employee of O1 Properties, lawyer Artem Ivanov, stated in court that “the plaintiff did not have the right to demand the conclusion of the main contracts” because he did not attend the meeting personally.

- In general, I must say that in the courts of O1 Properties lawyer Artem Ivanov seems to be replaced. At a meeting with equity holders, he reassures the first: he says that all previous agreements are valid, that our legal guarantees will not go anywhere from us. In court, he, without batting an eye, proves the opposite: the validity of the contracts has expired, which means that people can no longer pretend to sign the DDU, or to apartments, or even not a refund. In the corridor then, however, she almost apologizes for such behavior - they say, they sent his company to defend, ”Timur says.

As a result, in court, one of the main evidence of the impossibility of concluding equity agreements with equity holders was video surveillance recordings from the security post, which did not record the arrival of Rasulov in the office on April 30. The lawyer Ivanov did not take into account the authorized representatives. At the same time, the representative of the defendant tried to put forward the second version, which in some cases contradicted the first. The developer cannot allegedly conclude the required equity holders of DDU due to changes in 214-FZ adopted in 2019.

The court, in the end, agreed that the plaintiff did not appear at the appointed time and place for signing the document, and ruled to refuse to demand that the developer be forced to conclude the DDU. The shareholder appeals the decision of the first instance in the court of appeal.

The story with the "inaccessible" developer on the documented date is repeated with other interest holders.

- On December 31, 2019, according to the terms of the contract, I came to the developer’s office. The guards below did not let me in, saying that a pass was not ordered for me. I showed the men a copy of the notice in which I notified the developer in advance of my intention to come to the meeting on the set date. But the guards did not make any efforts to deal with this: the pass, they say, does not lie on you, and we will not pass it, such rules. I have noticed a decline "Avrasis Limited" in the presence of witnesses, - says one of the dolschits.

Permit for the construction of a multifunctional public and business complex with an underground car park at ul. Sadovnicheskaya, possession 82 No. RU77130000-008642 was issued by Avrasis Limited on November 8, 2013. (7 years ago!), It expires on September 8, 2021.

- The developer, in words and in presentations, provides us with regular construction schedules, but again they do not correspond to reality, and even the deadlines for individual work are missed again. It seems to us that now the construction site is no longer closed for visibility: on the area of 33 thousand square meters, as we saw it, 15 people work. It’s sad to look at it, ”says Lilia D.

Interest-holders of A-residence doubt that the planned object can be completed at such a pace in the remaining time.

- Our requirement is simple: return the money or sign a DDU. Developer's lawyers are no longer shy even in court - they claim that the preliminary contract has expired, therefore, it is invalid. They accuse us of avoiding signing contracts. True, they immediately add: and if they had appeared, then the updated 214 Federal Law supposedly does not allow them to conclude a DDU. We are talking to the builder in court - let's conclude the world: we will sign the main contract right here and now. They refuse. And the main thing is that they refuse to return money either. They say that the old leadership allegedly spent them, and they almost do charity work because of us, they take loans from banks, ”says Roman Ts.

The minimum guarantees for equity holders could be given by the site on which the apartments are being built. But more recently, and the land under construction "stirred." Interest holders suggest that the beneficiaries will delimit the golden land, and it will disappear from the balance sheet of the company, just as their money has already disappeared. The court did not impose encumbrances on the ground to secure claims of interest holders.

People’s fears about possible double sales and demarcation of the site, apparently, are not so unfounded.

Immediately, a number of departments opened checks on the branch of the Cyprus company Avrasis Limited in Moscow.

“As of March 10, 2020, monolithic structures were completed. Until now, they have not started other types of work, ”writes Alexander Pirogov, deputy chairman of the State Construction Supervision Committee of Moscow .

Check for violation by Avrasis Limited LLC of the requirements of the law in case of shared construction of an object located at Sadovnicheskaya street, 82, beginning of the Zamoskvoretskaya interdistrict prosecutor’s office.

“Based on the results of the audit, the question of the direction of the material is resolved in accordance with paragraph 2 of Part 2 of Art. 37 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation to resolve the issue of criminal prosecution, ”the prosecutor of the Zamoskvoretsky inter-district prosecutor’s office of Moscow, Maxim Kiselev, signs the response to the holders .

In the reception of the prosecutor, this answer dated 03.03.2020 was confirmed to the correspondent of Novye Izvestia. “The material is already signed,” said the secretary.

Joint monitoring and oversight measures on the fact of possible violations of the rights and legitimate interests of citizens by Avrasis Limited LLC since February have also been conducted by Moskomstroyinvest, the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office and the Office of Public Prosecution of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in Moscow, - the deputy chairman of the Moscow Committee for ensuring the implementation of investment projects in construction and control in the field of shared construction of the Government of Moscow Ekaterina Khramova.

The editors of "NI" sent a request to the Moscow Prosecutor's Office with a request to provide an opinion on the results of the audit of Avrasis Limited for possible violations of the legislation of the Russian Federation during the construction of the capital construction project "A-residence" at the address: st. Sadovnicheskaya, ow. 82, Moscow.