The authorities will cancel the increased fines and penalties for late payments for housing and communal services

According to RBC, the authorities intend to introduce a moratorium on fines, similar to the one that was introduced during the coronavirus pandemic from April 1, 2020 to January 1, 2021.

It is also allowed to impose a moratorium on the verification of meters, the news agency notes.

This is done in order to reduce the financial burden on the population during a new economic crisis, provoked by the start of the military special operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine and the subsequent Western sanctions.

The government intends to decouple penalties and fines for late payments from the key rate of the Central Bank, which at the end of February this year immediately rose to 20%.

The government was able to temporarily cancel this link and introduce a different procedure for calculating penalties and fines.

At the same time, for a number of industries, the procedure for calculating penalties linked to the key rate of the Central Bank may remain.

According to human rights activists, this measure may affect court cases related to the protection of consumer rights, including the restoration of violated rights of equity holders.

According to the calculations given by the head of the Interregional Organization for the Protection of Consumer Rights "Yurservice" Dmitry Volnukhin, due to the increase in the key rate of the Central Bank, the amount of fines from negligent developers charged by the courts in favor of deceived equity holders can grow by almost five times. With the cost of the equity participation agreement for the apartment of one of the equity holders at 1.1 million rubles and a delay of 180 days at the previous Central Bank rate of 4.5% per annum, the amount of compensation would be 64,269 rubles.

“However, due to the fact that the Bank of Russia raised the key rate on February 28, the amount of the fine will now be calculated based not on 4.5%, but on 20% per annum. Thus, over the same period, the amount of compensation to the same shareholder for the same apartment for 180 days of delay will increase almost five times and amount to 285,640 rubles”, - the lawyer explained.