What is related to utilities? All citizens, without exception, one way or another, encounter them. How justified are the amounts that companies have to pay for services? What are the legal ways to reduce payouts? How is payment performed?
Normative regulation
The Housing Code is the foundation of all legislation governing housing.
Government Decision No. 354 of 2011 addresses many issues regarding the conclusion and execution of contracts for the provision of housing and communal services. It is this document that explains what applies to public services.
There are also regulations on individual utilities, which partially overlap with PP No. 354.
It is important to be guided by a number of regulatory acts on the maintenance of an apartment building and a local area. In particular, they provide a minimum list of services to be provided.
A significant amount is the regulatory acts issued at the regional level that regulate the activities of housing and communal services organizations.
What is the problem
Understanding what is related to housing and communal services is important, as companies are constantly striving to maximize profits from relations with consumers and constantly violate the law.
Itβs easier for those owners who have organized HOAs or other legal entities to interact with service providers and provide some of them on their own.
It should be noted that, depending on the circumstances, the list of services is different. For example, not every house needs a centralized gas supply or cleaning the basement.
A little bit about terminology
They used to call a service a separate type of resource - water, gas, electricity, heating. In normative acts, utilities are understood as the activities of organizations or individual entrepreneurs aimed at creating comfortable living conditions. There is a difference in which of them relates to public services and which to housing. In conversations they are combined into a single complex.
There are different approaches to the grouping of services; in Russia today, approaches developed in the Soviet era are preserved. In some CIS countries, a different approach is used, combining all services into one complex at the level of legislation.
What relates to utilities
This is, first of all:
- Providing homeowners with cold water. Service requirements are minimal. In addition to the quality of water provided by other services, the obligation is to ensure uninterrupted supply. Centralized supply systems are provided, organized for a specific house. Still practiced speakers.
- Hot water supply. It is provided using a centralized system or also built for a specific house. Despite the expansion of the use of boilers, the service is still being provided.
- Lead is an integral element of an apartment building. The service is provided exclusively by connecting to a centralized sewage system.
- Electricity in homes today has become the norm, and managing organizations are obliged to provide conditions for uninterrupted access to it. At the same time, they are required to provide protection against accidents in the power system of the house.
- Gas supply. It is supplied through centralized supply systems, or citizens purchase it in cylinders. Legislatively established restrictions on the use of gas in cylinders in houses above a certain limit.
- Heating is organized mainly through centralized systems and forms a substantial part of the service charge. Payment is made throughout the year or exclusively in the cold. And in fact, and in another case, the direct provision of services is carried out in cold weather. On and off dates are determined by local authorities.
- The removal of municipal solid waste is what was formerly called household waste.
This is a list of what relates to public services.
House service
The provision of these types of services is regulated differently. In addition, home owners have the right to choose a specific set of services, thereby significantly increasing or decreasing the amount of monthly payments.
Housing services are combined in the maintenance of the house and the local area. They are dedicated to a separate voluminous government decree No. 451 of 2006.
The document describes the minimum level of work that must be done to keep the house in a safe condition for its residents.
All non-residential and other premises, communications, utilities , other equipment must be in good condition.
Household Measures
Here is what applies to housing and communal services in this case:
- Inspection of the common property of the residents of the house in order to identify non-compliance with standards. It is carried out by employees of the managing organization or one of the residents together with the HOA staff.
- Inspection and inspection of systems that provide residents with communal resources (electricity, water supply and sanitation).
- Preservation of temperature in the entrances in accordance with the regulations.
- Cleaning of entrances and other common areas and common areas.
- Garbage removal. For this purpose, the managing organization is obliged to equip a place for the collection and storage of municipal solid waste. A separate place is provided for the collection and storage of hazardous waste (e.g. lamps with mercury elements).
- Conservation of the elements of improvement and caring for them.
Responsibility of residents
What services do not apply to housing and communal services? There are works that are not the direct activities of the managing organizations, and the residents of the house are required to perform them independently:
- repair of doors, windows and premises that are not residential and not included in the list of objects of common property;
- window insulation and door repair in apartments;
- cleaning and cleansing of a site not related to the local area.
Waste collection
The legislation on the collection of household waste introduced a number of changes. As before, garbage collection was a separate service. Now it is called somewhat differently - solid municipal waste management. This includes waste that does not require special measures to be collected and stored. For example, leftovers, packets.
Waste related to a high degree of danger should be collected in another, separate place. This includes televisions, sophisticated appliances, etc.
Minimum Dial Value
With it, the house is kept in good condition. There is no risk of the danger of its destruction or the manifestation of a threat to life and health to those who live there.
Managing organizations and owners should not agree on a smaller set of services and work. Residents of the house are entitled to order a large amount of services from the list proposed by the contractor. I must say that their companies do not provide them on their own, but by attracting third organizations.
Quality of service
The main properties of utilities include their ability to provide comfortable living in a residential building. However, the question is often raised not so much about comfort as about the safety of people.
Services are required to be provided according to standards that determine their quality. If the standards are not met, then the quality is reduced, and people have the right to demand a reduction in pay. Lack of service gives the right not to pay.
For management companies, the systematic nature of violations is both the lost money that ceases to pay them and the risk of losing the license.
Service costs
Payment for services is made according to the size of the area owned by the property, multiplied by the value of the tariff. The price is calculated based on the services that are provided. Managing organizations are required to submit to the department of the city or district economy a proposal to establish a tariff for each house separately. But this applies to housing services. Utilities. What expenses do they relate to?
Firstly, each apartment owner pays for the resources personally consumed by him and his family members . Secondly, some of them are spent on general needs, for example, lighting of common premises (entrances). Accruals are made for them on the basis of readings from common house meters, and payment is already made at other rates.
Housing Repair
Everyone understands what a repair is - employees of the managing organization update or change equipment, eliminate breakdowns, accidents. At the same time, the structural elements of the house are not affected.
In this regard, the question arises - does overhaul belong to public services?
Strictly speaking, no. The relevant provisions in the LCD are highlighted in a separate chapter. However, owners are required to make contributions similar to how they pay for services.
According to the law, overhaul includes the repair of a whole list of elements (Art. 166 LCD). Regional authorities have the right to supplement it. Within its framework, reconstruction of the building can be carried out. How to behave to citizens?
The only way out is to form a fund by making payments to a separate account, and not to pay money to a regional operator.
Billing
It is based on a receipt sent to the owner. Residents of individual houses are simpler: a number of services are not paid for by them at all, since they are not provided with them. Another advantage is the right to pay for services directly. A resident of an apartment building is faced with the obligation to pay for all services on a single receipt, some of which are of poor quality or are not provided.
And the question is: what payments relate to utilities? This includes funds:
- for hot and cold water;
- to pay for electricity;
- to pay for heating;
- to pay for gas consumed.
A separate line is the maintenance of the house and the adjacent territory, defined as a house adjoining.
For a single receipt, abbreviations and abbreviations are characteristic, which makes it difficult to understand the numbers entered into it.
The receipt includes information about the subsidies allocated to the citizen, about the recalculation, if there have been overpayments before.
Payment scheme
Paying for everything related to housing and communal services is one of the duties of citizens. Payment is organized using mail, cash desks. Today, electronic payment systems are gaining more and more popularity. Their use is convenient, but one nuance should be taken into account. The length of time that the money actually reaches the supplier. Listing can take up to two weeks. Write-off from the account of a person occurs instantly, the rest of the time is spent on waiting.
Finally
To ensure a comfortable and safe stay, measures are taken to provide the necessary services. Some of them are called communal (for example, water or light) and are consumed directly by humans. The second - housing and relate primarily to the safety of the house.
In judicial practice and communication, the two concepts are mixed. In addition, laws provide for the obligation to pay contributions for future major repairs. It is not directly included in the list of utilities, but the payers have no choice.