The new owners of apartments were offered to oblige to pay debts for housing and communal services of the previous owners. Such a bill was prepared and sent to the Ministry of Construction by the Association “Housing and Public Utilities and the Urban Environment” (Izvestia has the document). This refers to debts for management, maintenance, maintenance, and utilities (for example, water supply, heating).
“Citizens buying housing, as a rule, are not interested in other people’s debts, and former owners often disappear without paying off their debts,” explained Dmitry Gordeev, a member of the RF CCI’s Committee on Entrepreneurship in the Housing and Utilities Sector.
The Association “Housing and Public Utilities and the Urban Environment” proposed to extend the legal structure for the transfer of debt for overhaul to the new owner for all types of fees for management, maintenance, current repairs of common property in an apartment building and utilities (water, electricity, heat).
The association sent the corresponding bill to the Ministry of Construction (Izvestia has a copy). The authors of the initiative expect that the department will support the document. Changes are proposed to be made to Art. 157 and 158 ZhK RF.
About half of the apartments that are put up for sale in Russia have debts for housing and communal services, Ildar Khusainov, director of the federal real estate company Etazhi, told Izvestia. Before the sale, some of the owners still pay for all receipts, he said.
“The amendments will stimulate buyers of apartments to ask the sellers for certificates of absence of debts. If there is a debt, then the purchaser will be interested in the fact that it was paid off – at the expense of the seller or a discount on housing, ”said Dmitry Gordeev.
The Ministry of Construction supports the need to resolve the issue of debt repayment when selling an apartment, the department told Izvestia. The position of the ministry on the proposal of the association “Housing and Utilities and Urban Environment” will be formed after studying the document.
Read more in the exclusive material from Izvestia:
Accounts chamber: utility debts of sellers of apartments can be passed on to their buyers