Here's a house that doesn't exist

New ghost buildings discovered in Moscow

Muscovite Yuri Chiappari lives in a house that does not exist. That is, the 25-story building itself has existed, standing on the outskirts of Moscow, on Veernaya Street, for several years, but there are no documents for this house. But if there are no documents, its residents have no property rights. And neither Mr. Chiappari nor hundreds of his neighbors can, accordingly, rent out, sell, donate their housing, or dispose of it in any other way. As Vremya Novostey managed to find out, there are dozens of such ghost houses in the capital. And their residents became victims of the famous program of the Moscow authorities to relocate from demolished Khrushchev buildings.

The five-story buildings on Veernaya Street were demolished in 2003, and in their place, almost six months later, the developer company PPSK TETs-25 LLC built two new 25-story buildings. The former inhabitants of the “khrushchubs” were moved into one of them, and the other was completely put up for sale.

When the issue of demolition and relocation was just being raised, the Department of Housing Policy (UDHP) and the Housing Fund of the Western Administrative District invited residents of old houses to enter into short-term rental agreements. And he explained this by the fact that the new house has not yet been built, the documentation for it has not been submitted, and according to the law, new residents cannot become owners of the new living space. Even then, many were embarrassed by the prospect, albeit temporarily, of losing ownership of their home. But Muscovites had no choice - the Khrushchev buildings were demolished, and there was nowhere to live except for the proposed high-rise building.

Everything went on as usual - the new residents settled into new apartments and made repairs. A year later, the time for which the short-term rental agreement was concluded expired, and the residents prepared to receive the treasured document confirming their ownership of the apartments. And imagine their surprise when they learned that their house did not actually exist - it was not listed on the city’s balance sheet. And de jure, new settlers continued to be considered tenants of housing from the state.

Most residents have accepted this state of affairs. Except for one thing. Yuri Kiappari decided to defend his property. “I’m so tired of suing, I’ve been receiving letters and going to court for three years, but everything is useless,” Mr. Chiappari complained to Vremya Novostei, shaking a thick folder with documents. It contains everything: an appeal to deputies of the City Duma, refusals to recognize property rights from the Moscow Housing Policy Department, and letters from the prosecutor’s office. “Opposite ours there is a similar house, only people were not moving there from five-story buildings, but all the apartments were being sold. They don't have any problems,” Mr. Chiappari said. Recently he stopped paying for utilities. “Since my house is not there, why should I pay for it? - he reasoned. - I’m writing to the authorities - they say that the developer is to blame. I contact the developer and they say: all questions should be addressed to the prefecture.”

Here is what, in particular, is said in one of the responses of the housing estate to numerous letters from the scandalous tenant: “It is currently not possible to formalize the ownership of the city of Moscow for an apartment at the specified address due to the lack of an act on the results of the implementation of the investment contract within the framework of which the construction was carried out the indicated house." First Deputy Mayor Lyudmila Shvetsova assured Mr. Chiappari: “After the full package of documents has been completed, ownership of your apartment will be issued as quickly as possible.” The Western District Prosecutor's Office is tired of answering Mr. Kiappari the same way: “It has been repeatedly explained to you that registration of property rights of citizens receiving apartments under transactions to which the city of Moscow is a party is possible only after state registration of property rights of the city of Moscow for the corresponding apartments.” Nevertheless, during the inspection, the prosecutor’s office noted the fact of “the lengthy execution of the act of implementing the investment contract and the registration of the city’s rights to the constructed project.” However, “no signs of criminal offenses were established in the actions of UJP officials.” The only thing that was proposed by the prosecutor's office was to go to court with a claim “for compensation for losses caused in connection with the lengthy registration of ownership of the provided apartment.”

But Mr. Chiappari also failed in court. In his statement of claim to the Nikulinsky District Court, he wrote that, due to the fault of officials, UZHP cannot exercise its rights as an owner and therefore asks to compensate him for the moral damage suffered in the amount of 90 thousand rubles. The defendant objected: Chiappari “receives services for the apartment and must pay for them.” But the representative of the UJP could not explain why the ownership right had not been formalized, but at the same time stated that there was no reason to require the department to register the ownership right. The court, denying Mr. Chiappari his seemingly legal right to property, noted the following: “The plaintiff asks to register his ownership of the apartment, but the defendants do not formalize it, since this responsibility is assigned to the Federal Registration Service. Chiappari did not make any other demands. Therefore, this requirement cannot be satisfied.”

The Vremya Novostei correspondent decided to ask the authorities this question himself, and it turned out that everyone was really trying to blame each other. But it also turned out that we have “half of Moscow” with such ghost houses. “So what if Chiappari has no property rights. Half of Moscow is now walking around without property rights,” Vitaly Chernov, deputy head of UDPZh ZAO, told us. - And we do not give him (Kiappari. - Ed. ) this right. We are not involved in city rights. They are dealt with by the developer and investor who are building this house. They coordinate everything with the prefecture and send it through the department to Mosregistration. Such a procedure can take two or three years.”

And the developer company - LLC "PPSK TETs-25" - generally believes that there are no problems with the house of the unfortunate Kiappari. “There are no problems, there are none at all in any of the houses,” said company president Mikhail Khesin. - It's none of our business. And if something had happened, a criminal case would have been opened against us. If someone has already moved into this house, it means the house has been accepted by the city.” Mr. Khesin, in addition, noted that “people who are being relocated from five-story buildings are given apartments on a rental basis.” This last statement of his, apparently, is the very reason why the notorious “Act on the results of the implementation of the investment contract” has not yet been transferred to the Moscow authorities. By the way, as you can see, not a single official disputes that Chiappari and his fellow sufferers should receive ownership of the apartments. But none of them gives even an approximate time frame for when this might happen. And whether this will happen at all remains unclear.

Kirill MELNIKOV, Ekaterina BUTORINA