His own manager

Which is better - HOA or management company?

• In Russia, 87% of housing, more than 40 million residential premises, are owned by citizens, but not everyone is ready to manage their homes.
• The Council of the house chose only 9% of Russians, 6% participated in the creation of the HOA, and only 4% of the owners control the work of their management company.
• The fundamental principle of the Housing Code: the owners own not only specific apartments, but also common property in the house.
• If active and informed owners gathered in the HOA, this method of managing the house can be very effective.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: 87% of housing in Russia is owned by citizens. These are more than 40 million residential premises. However, most of the owners living in apartment buildings do not think that they own not only specific apartments, but also the house as a whole. The Council of the house, according to sociologists, chose only 9% of Russians, 6% participated in the creation of HOAs, and only 4% of the owners control the work of their management company.

On Michurinsky Prospekt in Moscow there are four identical houses built on one project at about the same time: three of them are covered with mold, the tiles are collapsing at their entrances, the roof flows in places, and one is an exemplary, recently painted, the house in a new heating main, clean basements and entrances.

Video version of the program

Correspondent: For several years in Moscow, you can observe a kind of competition, who is better serving at home. In case of confrontation between the state budgetary institution "Housing" and the HOA "Ramenka" for residents, the answer seems obvious.

Elizaveta Denisenko, a resident of one of the houses: both we and they pay the same utilities, but at the expense of the HOA they changed the doors on the floors, black moves in a sticker hall, windows, and such repairs were made that people can put the sled there in the summer.

Correspondent: Four typical houses on Michurinsky Prospekt in Moscow were built in the mid-90s, 20 years later the houses needed a major overhaul. Officials only shook their hands on the complaints of the residents. The inhabitants of one of these houses decided that it was useless to wait for help from the authorities, and created the HOA in order to put the house in order with their own forces. Today the neighbors envy them.

Everything is done with love, not for window dressing and not for check

Elizaveta Denisenko: Everything is done with love, not for window dressing and not for a checkmark. Near each entrance there is a container where people put a paper, glass, plastic container. And we have only three containers for separate garbage collection on all three buildings. Look, mold on all floors! The woman from the first building said: six years can not achieve the issue with the roof, so that there are no leaks. The cladding in such a state is not today, tomorrow the plaster will collapse. In winter, we even have snow in the so -called hallways, but no one wants to change the door.

Correspondent: residents of neighboring houses neighboring from the HOA communicate regularly, but their requests there are most often ignored.

But the life of the HOA is also not easy. In recent years, the chairmen of the partnership complain that the administration prevents them from working. HOA Chairman Emilia Khokhlova believes that the administration is simply unprofitable when the HOA serves at home better for the same money than a budget organization.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: When a law was developed providing for the introduction of housing owners partnerships, it was assumed that, acting on their own, people would be much more efficient to manage apartment buildings, choose service organizations, and more responsible for spending funds. However, many owners of apartments do not think about HOAs, they regularly pay for utility bills for those receipts that they find monthly in their mailboxes. Sometimes they do not agree with the indicated amounts, but, as a rule, they do not make themselves difficult to find out why this or that service this month has risen in price by 30, 50 or 70 rubles.

We guest Emilia Khokhlova , chairman of the Board of the HOA in Ramenki, and Dmitry Nifontov , a specialist in legal and technical issues of the housing sector.

What is better to choose - HOA or management company? And is it possible to change something if the choice has already been made several years ago?

Dmitry Nifontov: It is impossible to answer unequivocally: everywhere there are pros and cons, and much depends on the owners themselves. If the house has active, purposeful, competent owners, they want to manage their home on their own, are ready to work, will not be lazy, then the HOA will be more effective. If the owners in these matters are poorly understood, they heard something somewhere, but they have neither knowledge, no competencies, nor desires, then the HOA will be very ineffective.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: Sometimes people would like to organize a HOA, but they fear: at home in such a state that all the shortcomings left by the management company will fall on their shoulders.

Emilia Khokhlova: At the end of 2007, we went to the HOA with a completely destroyed house. And we received a zero account, debts, launched common property. We set a goal - from year to year, without raising the fee, systematically restore our property. We all perfectly understood that no one would contain the house as we would like, and all the management companies we have encountered, and the operating organization see only the rate of profit, profitability.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: Is it possible to ensure that, entering the HOA, already get some amount from the same management company, allocated for maintenance and maintenance of this house, but not spent in a targeted way?

Dmitry Nifontov: There are such precedents. It is difficult, but possible.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: Are these courts?

Dmitry Nifontov

Dmitry Nifontov: Basically - yes, although in extrajudicial work you can also try to do something. But here it is important to understand what money the management organization receives for what services. In my opinion, the only means that can be obtained from the management company is to return either funds for unfulfilled maintenance work in the form of recalculations or funds accumulated for current repairs. Often the mistake of the owners is that they perceive the management company as a credit institution similar to the bank: they paid, and their money is accumulated there. It is important to understand that this is not so: we pay for the rent, and from the moment of receipt of funds to the accounting account of the organization, this is no longer our money. However, there are target payments. Specifically, a separate plan is usually drawn up for current repair, and money is really accumulated there because the work is expensive, and it is not carried out every month, but for, for example, a year, they are planned for some month, and the funds for this repair are accumulated all year.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: And this money, if desired, can be covered with a management company when the house decided to create an HOA.

Dmitry Nifontov: That's right!

Maryana Torocheshnikova: But how then to create a HOA? Ten years ago, the law ordered everyone to choose a form of management, and then it was necessary, probably, to create them? Or can you create now, in an old house?

Dmitry Nifontov: Housing legislation provides that changing the management method is possible at any time.

Svetlana Mironova, chairman of the Council of House No. 15 on Kotovsky Street: the owners united the common trouble: the house is falling apart, pipes flow, in the basement knee -deep.

Correspondent: It seemed that the house of 1950 of the construction could no longer save, his residents recall. They hoped for the management company and paid for exorbitant bills for housing and communal services.

Elderly people who, among the residents, did not have the strength to fight communal workers and overtake the thresholds of officials’s offices. Then they asked for help from their neighbor - Svetlana Mironova , and for this they looked after her child. And now, while the pensioners are nursing with the son of the chairman of the Council of the house, she goes to check how they make repairs in the entrances. The unemployed mother had to understand the electrician, diesel supply, study the Housing Code, and prove his right to the director of the management company.

Svetlana Mironova: Now I clearly know what is where it is, what is paid for. I said: "So, guys, you will return the ruble to me now, and in addition to this ruble you will return us here, here and here and here - all that you got illegally from us, because this is what you did not finish."

Correspondent: Mironova won several ships, initiated a prosecutor's check. The first money for the needs of the house Svetlana, the financier by education, earned, leasing land in the yard under the kiosk and forcing Internet providers to pay for the cables laid in the attic. Profit was invested in the modernization of the heat unit.

Svetlana Mironova: When we put a manual regulator and turned off the automation, the savings in hot water turned out to be 70 thousand, that is, this valve paid for itself within a month.

Correspondent: Now such equipment regulates heat supply in each room of the house. Gradually, the residents changed the saved money in the entrances of the windows, repaired the facade, defeated the flower garden, put the playground, the fence and installed the video surveillance system. At the same time, the amount of housing maintenance in payment for 12 years increased by only 200 rubles.

Svetlana Visarab, a resident of house number 15 on Kotovsky Street: I have utilities in housing and communal services in the range of 1300. There is no much loss for my budget.

The meticulous chairman Mironov calls the real mistress of the house not only tenants, but also public utilities

Correspondent: The meticulous chairman Mironov calls the real mistress of the house not only residents, but also public utilities. Upon learning of Svetlana's successes, the administrations were drawn to her for advice, first one, then by whole delegations. Now the chairman conducts regular lectures and teaches colleagues how to draw up a management agreement, how to save money on electricity and warmth and how best to overhaul the house.

Dmitry Nifontov: It is important to understand that all common property belongs to the owners of the premises.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: just people cannot realize this, because since Soviet times they got used to the fact that they have some kind of apartment, but anyone else is responsible for everything else, but not them.

Emilia Khokhlova: The most funny thing is that in the houses served by the “Housing”, the owner also pays for the maintenance of not only his four walls, but also of all common property, and does not receive a service proportional to the money given for it. The owners are illiterate.

Dmitry Nifontov: The common property belongs to the owners of the premises - this is the fundamental principle of the Housing Code. The whole house is a complex engineering and technical system that belongs to the shares of the owners of the premises, and all elements of common property also belong to them.

Emilia Khokhlova: The only thing I do not understand is how to force the management company to support common property. Money is paid, the budget of a fifth -hemile house for maintenance and repair - 7 million 100 thousand. Of course, there a large mass of money eats an elevator, garbage removal, cleaning, smoke removal, but the delta remains precisely for maintenance and current repairs. Here everything is spinning around this part of the money, and it is absolutely unknown where they go. There is a plan that is voiced at the "houses of Moscow", and it is spelled out: the flushing of the stairs costs so much, washing the mailboxes-so much ... And as a result, this fund of money seems to sign for all these positions.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: But in fact, nothing of the kind happens.

Emilia Khokhlova: Yes.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: And if there is a HOA, people can ask someone, why did not wash the mailboxes, windows, did not get out: where do our money go?

Emilia Khokhlova: We have annual reports: the Chairman of the Board, report of the Homeowners Assembly, the report of the audit commission, the estimate of the maintenance of the house for the next year and the execution of the estimate of the maintenance of last year, are five documents that the general meeting of owners claims. And for six years we have had a hundred percent vote on these issues. HOA is interested in maintaining the house so that the owner does not have questions where the money goes.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: You draw a rainbow picture to us, and I know other stories when the HOA was created by a construction company that launched a house. They didn’t ask people whether they want it to be HOA or not, but simply the owner of most of the premises was this company that created its own legal entity. They set the amounts that people should pay for utilities, for the maintenance of the house, the chairman there often will not find what is happening in the house - it is not clear where the money is spent - too. And it is almost impossible to overthrow such a chairman or eliminate such an HOA that went into a load with a new apartment. And what to do?

Dmitry Nifontov: Now the legislation in this part has changed. When the new building is commissioned, the competition must be announced, and the management organization must be selected by the competition. In addition, from this year, we have persons who have accepted the apartment from the developer according to the act, that is, they are not yet owners, but have already accepted the premises, have the right to participate in the general meeting, and this makes it possible to exclude the situation where the developer, owning most of the premises, makes a decision that is beneficial only to him. If he sold these premises, handed over to people, then these people participate in the general meeting. And cases when it was difficult to overcome, are associated with the inaction of the organs that should control this (state housing supervision, prosecutor's office), if something goes wrong; But first of all, this is due to the uninitality of the owners. As soon as they saw that their rights were violated in something, they must be defended, but they do nothing.

Emilia Khokhlova

Emilia Khokhlova: When the developer creates a HOA, this is covering the management company. And here I can advise the owners only to get into the board of the HOA: the more owners they will be in the board, the stronger they can affect politics in this HOA.

There is no single scheme. Each house is individual, but I always say: HOA should be. And after creating an HOA, you have two ways: either you manage yourself, hire employees to the staff, or conclude an agreement with the management company. But you control all work as a legal entity, you have the right to monthly require acts of work performed.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: And what if ten people in an apartment building want HOA, and the remaining ninety people do not want? Selling an apartment?

Dmitry Nifontov: In fact - yes. Housing legislation, like no other, provides for the obligation to negotiate. The apartment building, from the point of view of the law, is an indivisible object, the common property is indivisible, and here everyone is obliged to negotiate. This is also one of the reasons for constant conflicts, because one wants the HOA, the other wants the management company, and the third wants to have no one at all. And if the owners cannot agree, then local governments or state authorities will hold a competition and appoint their management company: either decide for yourself, or decide for you, but without taking into account your interests.

Emilia Khokhlova: either actively or tolerate.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: And what about defectors? If there is no HOA in the house, then some problems will have a specific non-payer of utilities, he can, by decision of the court, turn off some communications or limit access to communications. And if there is a HOA, then the debt is hanging throughout the partnership.

Emilia Khokhlova: Yes, because we pay utility bills for a house meter, like a management company, regardless of specific paid apartments. Yes, there is a debt, but if you take HOA houses and houses houses, then we have three non -payers, the rest are current. Basically, people do not pay if they physically have no money, or fundamentally, seeing the condition of the house. For houses of HOA, I do not see a problem.

Housing legislation, like no other, provides for the obligation to negotiate

Dmitry Nifontov: In this part there is no fundamental difference between the HOA and the management company, they have similar problems. Debts of non -payers for utilities are required to pay for the HOA and the management company. But the difference is that the management company is usually a larger organization, and it has appropriate resources.

Maryana Torocheshnikova: What can the HOA earn on?

Emilia Khokhlova: We are a non -profit organization, so we can only earn on economic activity - this is the use of a facade and common property, renting elements of common property by decision of the general meeting.

Dmitry Nifontov: Moreover, this money should be sent for the maintenance of this house, that is, it cannot be obtained. All funds are targeted, as it is spelled out in the Housing Code.

Emilia Khokhlova: Unfortunately, the new law on advertising nullified the possibility of earnings on facade advertising: we stopped placing advertising on the facades, and we lost a lot of income on this. Но все равно остались маленькие вывески на уровне второго этажа, и собственники нежилых помещений, арендаторы за это платят. По решению общего собрания можно использовать подвалы: ТСЖ сдают их под парикмахерские, обувные мастерские. Есть ряд ТСЖ, которые боролись за подвал, принадлежавший другому собственнику, и есть ТСЖ, отвоевавшее цокольный этаж, который забрали в собственность другие люди.

Марьяна Торочешникова: Но это все суды.

Эмилия Хохлова: Только суды! Причем должны быть очень хорошие юристы.

Марьяна Торочешникова: А можно собирать деньги на ТСЖ с поставщиков услуг, с тех же интернет-провайдеров?

Эмилия Хохлова: А это не за услуги, это деньги за размещение на общем имуществе жителей оборудования посторонних организаций. У нас все интернет-провайдеры платят в зависимости от количества абонентов в доме.

Дмитрий Нифонтов: По этому вопросу уже и суды многократно признавали, и 1 марта этого года Верховный суд принял решение в отношении Ростелекома, что он должен платить за размещение своего оборудования в многоквартирных домах, как и все остальные операторы связи.

Эмилия Хохлова: И даже в домах, где нет ТСЖ, люди могут общим собранием собственников принять решение, что общее имущество используется на возмездной, договорной основе, и назначить плату. Единственное, эти деньги будут попадать на счет управляющей компании, у которой есть подсчет данного дома.

Дмитрий Нифонтов: Да, там есть особенности - нельзя нарушать закон о конкуренции, создавать для кого-то преимущества: если устанавливается тариф для размещения оборудования, то он должен быть одинаковым для всех.

Марьяна Торочешникова: А что делать людям, которые уже создали ТСЖ, и дом, например, фасадный, он подсвечивается? Кто оплачивает это электричество, и можно ли отказаться от подсветки?

Эмилия Хохлова: Ни один вопрос не должен решаться без согласия собственников.

Дмитрий Нифонтов: И надо смотреть, как это все оформлено. По всем коммунальным ресурсам у нас границей поставки является стена дома, а все, что за стеной, в том числе и электричество, не оплачивается собственниками. Есть даже соответствующее письмо Минстроя России, где указано, что освещение дворов, придомовой территории - это ни в коем случае не обязанность собственников. И надо обязательно устанавливать приборы учета.

Марьяна Торочешникова: Почему чиновники так не любят ТСЖ?

Дмитрий Нифонтов: Потому что они любят сами все контролировать.

Эмилия Хохлова: Мы для них как красная тряпка. Мы направляем все средства на содержание общего имущества и улучшаем его изо дня в день, из месяца в месяц, из года в год. Мы показываем пример того, что за те же деньги можно надлежаще содержать дом, а они пытаются доказать, что за деньги, которые платят люди, невозможно содержать общее имущество.

Дмитрий Нифонтов: Помимо интересов регулятора, у чиновников есть еще бизнес-интересы, и здесь ТСЖ выступает как конкурент. Так что причин того, почему ТСЖ не любят, много.

Марьяна Торочешникова: Резюмируя все вышесказанное, что все-таки лучше - ТСЖ или управляющая компания?

Эмилия Хохлова: За десять лет работы мы доказали преимущество ТСЖ, показали, что из помойного дома можно сделать современное здание за те же деньги, на которые содержатся все дома в Москве. Только собственники дома заинтересованы в его надлежащем состоянии, и если есть коллектив единомышленников - правление ТСЖ, то это идеальный коллектив, идеальные цели и идеальное решение всех проблем.

Дмитрий Нифонтов: Я бы не был столь категоричен. Существуют и хорошие, и плохие управляющие компании, так же, как хорошие и плохие ТСЖ. Все зависит от того, кто строит эти компании и как ведут себя собственники в доме. Что создать - ТСЖ или управляющую компанию - зависит от собственников, а сделать эффективным можно и то, и другое.