Late payments for utilities will be equal in cost to consumer loans

Deputies intend to tighten the mutual responsibility of consumers and providers of housing and communal services. For late payments for water, electricity, gas and heat, citizens will face penalties comparable to the cost of consumer loans, it follows from the bill submitted to the State Duma; they will be able to receive compensation for inflating the cost of services or their inadequate quality. Another rule is on the way that will limit the right of debtors to dispose of their housing. In part, this is all an alternative to previous plans to introduce prepayment for housing and communal services.

On Friday, a group of deputies submitted to the State Duma draft amendments to the Housing Code and a number of other laws, which, in their opinion, will help restore order in the housing and communal services sector. For incomplete or late payment for services, the consumer - both the citizen and the management company - will be required to pay the resource supplying organization a penalty in the amount of one hundred and seventieth of the Central Bank refinancing rate for each day of delay. The starting point is the tenth day of the next month. This rule applies to payments for gas, electricity, water and heat. Now the penalties are one three hundredth of the refinancing rate. According to the authors of the document, the new amount of fines is close to the average rate of short-term consumer loans, and therefore will significantly reduce the motivation for late payment of utilities. For late payments for residential premises, legislators retained fines at one three hundredth of the Central Bank refinancing rate for a period of up to 90 days, then penalties also increased to one hundred and seventieth of the rate.

In addition, the bill gives resource supply organizations the right to convene a general meeting of owners of premises in an apartment building if the management company (or homeowners' association, housing cooperative, etc.) owes them more than three months, and raises the issue of changing the method of managing the building . However, the document also provides for sanctions for management companies in the event that, through their fault, the interests of residents have suffered. Thus, for violation of the procedure for calculating payments, the service provider will be obliged to pay the consumer a penalty of 15% of the excess of this fee over the norm. The minimum fine is 200 rubles, and the maximum is 50% of the average cost of services per month. If the services were of inadequate quality, the penalty will be 30% of this amount. At the same time, a dissatisfied consumer will also have the right to initiate the convening of a general meeting of premises owners.

It must be said that deputies announced a similar legislative initiative last fall, at parliamentary hearings. And these measures to improve the financial discipline of consumers and providers of housing and communal services were not the only ones they proposed. Another idea was to limit the rights of property owners for debts. If a citizen has not paid for housing and communal services for more than six months and has not complied with a court decision to repay the debt, deputies proposed to deprive him of the opportunity to sell his home. But, as one of the authors of the amendments, deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Housing Policy and Housing and Communal Services Pavel Kachkarov, told Kommersant, after a lengthy discussion it was decided to abandon this idea.

A source in the Ministry of Construction said that the corresponding clause was removed from the bill submitted to the State Duma at the last moment. However, according to Kommersant's information, he may return there - while preparing the document for the second reading. Both the restrictions on transactions themselves and the objects to which they may apply (if the debtor owns several residential premises) need clarification.

Such measures are partly an alternative to the government’s previous plans to transfer payments for utility services to prepayment; Gazprom head Alexey Miller came up with this idea in the fall, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered it to be worked on. However, against the backdrop of widespread public outcry, the Ministry of Construction proposed extending advance payments only to persistent defaulters.

Natalya Ilyina, Stanislav Kuvaldin

Like housing and communal services in a bank