Translated material
Apartment for a lieutenant
Military mortgage will undergo changes
The first results of an experiment within the framework of a savings-mortgage system for providing housing for military personnel have been published: 218 participants in the experiment (according to the terms of the mortgage, these are young officers) purchased apartments. This was stated by the head of the Federal Directorate of the Savings and Mortgage Housing System for Military Personnel (FU NIS) of the Ministry of Defense, Major General Alexander Rylsky.The geography of purchases is from Kaliningrad to Khabarovsk. A third of military personnel purchased apartments not at their place of service, but in other cities, because an officer can be a participant in a military mortgage, regardless of whether he needs housing or not. Moreover, even a lieutenant who has a mortgaged apartment is not excluded from the list of those in need of official housing. However, based on the amount of funds allocated, the participants in the experiment were forced to purchase cheaper housing on the secondary market. Of the 218 apartments, only 14 were purchased initially.
The law on the savings-mortgage system for the purchase of housing by military personnel came into force on January 1, 2005. Its essence is this: the state transfers funds to the personal account of the military mortgage participant, which are either accumulated there and used by the serviceman to purchase an apartment at a convenient time for him, or are used to pay off a mortgage loan for which housing has already been purchased.
At the same time, only military personnel who have entered into a contract with the Ministry of Defense and other law enforcement agencies for service no earlier than January 2005 can be mortgage participants. In other words, now these are lieutenants and senior lieutenants.
Since the beginning of 2005, the Ministry of Defense began transferring military personnel funds allocated from the budget to trust management of companies that won the tender, and prepared by-laws. And in February of this year, an experiment was launched that is designed to identify the weaknesses of the law.
The Ministry of Defense assesses the first results of the experiment as generally positive. However, during the six months that the experiment lasted, many “blank spots” in the current legislation were revealed. A meeting held in the military department was devoted to correcting the errors. Amendments to the legislation proposed by its participants are expected to expand the rights of military personnel to use mortgage funds, namely, to allow them to be invested in housing already at the construction stage, which will reduce the price of a future apartment.
In addition, management companies operating in the mortgage market, in order to obtain higher income, must receive the right to invest mortgage funds in a larger number of financial instruments, for example, as proposed by the Federal Service for Financial Markets, in shares. (Management companies have already received income in the amount of 134 million rubles, which is distributed among the accounts of military personnel.)
It was also decided to expand the list of categories of military personnel participating in mortgages. We are talking primarily about servicemen of the FSB and SVR. These are, as a rule, graduates of civilian educational institutions who received their first military rank upon entering service in their “special organizations.” The list also includes contract soldiers, graduates of junior officer training courses and those who receive their primary officer rank while still studying (for example, students of the FSB Academy, Military Medical Academy).
When using savings, preferential calculation of service life will now be taken into account for pilots, submariners, and military personnel who have passed through hot spots. Usually they become eligible for a pension without even having 20 years of service. According to the current law, military personnel in this category, leaving so early, had to repay the loan themselves for the remaining years before a “normal” pension. Just like those who retired from the Armed Forces due to illness. Now these people will become full participants in the military mortgage.
Another proposed innovation will affect the procedure for processing mortgage documents: real estate services, loan processing, services of an appraisal organization, and an insurance company when registering an apartment will be paid for by a serviceman not from personal funds, but from a targeted housing loan.
The President instructed to amend the law on the savings-mortgage system for purchasing housing for military personnel at the autumn session of the State Duma. The bill has already been agreed upon with all law enforcement agencies and is in the Ministry of Justice. It should be submitted to the government soon.
However, not everyone is happy with the savings-mortgage system for the military. Senior officers come to General Rylsky and say: we have served for decades, we don’t have an apartment, but yesterday’s graduate of a military school already owns his own square meters, which he can even rent out. Indeed, it turns out that today a lieutenant who bought housing with a military mortgage may well rent out his apartment, including, for example, to a colonel without an apartment.
Today, more than 47 thousand military personnel participate in the savings-mortgage system (NIS). About 4 billion rubles are recorded in their personal accounts. In the budget for 2008-2010, 34.2 billion rubles were allocated to finance the NIS. The amount of the savings contribution of one participant for this year is 82.2 thousand rubles. (based on the cost per square meter of 26.1 thousand rubles), for 2008 - 89.9 thousand rubles. (28.3 thousand rubles per meter), for 2009 - 96.3 thousand rubles. (30.3 thousand rubles per meter), in 2010 - 102.8 thousand rubles. (32.4 thousand rubles per meter). These contributions do not take into account geography. The conditions for the allocation of funds are the same for all military personnel, regardless of the different costs of housing by region.