Deliberately causing harm to things and objects entails administrative or criminal liability. Depending on the circumstances, the culprit may face a fine for damage to property, various terms of work, and even imprisonment. Unintentional but costly damage to property is Article 168 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the punishment for which will be a penalty within the limits of the annual salary. Damage to property by minors is also an offense for which the child’s parents or the child himself will be held accountable if the crime is classified under separate articles of the Criminal Code.
Intentional damage to property - Article 168 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
The law obliges citizens to be responsible for their actions that cause harm to other people. We are talking about personal financial responsibility provided for in Article 1064 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, as well as responsibility to the state and society. The current versions of the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses contain a number of rules defining punishment for material damage to someone else’s property.
Article 168 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation implies liability for careless actions with fire, gas or other sources of danger, as a result of which losses to third parties amounted to more than a quarter of a million rubles. The conditions for holding people accountable under this standard include everyday negligence, for example, a fire at a neighbor’s dacha due to carelessness at the barbecue and the negligence of employees at work.
The punishment for the culprit may be:
- a fine of up to 120 thousand rubles;
- compulsory, forced or correctional labor;
- restriction or imprisonment for up to a year.
Corpus delicti
Art. will help to fully clarify all the circumstances related to the problem of property damage. 165 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. It will be much easier to do this with comments. They clearly describe the subjective and objective signs that characterize this act as a crime:
- The subject of such an offense may be persons who have reached the age of sixteen. Employees of companies who commit such offenses using their official position are not included here. They will be held accountable to the law under a completely different article.
- The subjective side is determined by guilt in the form of a selfish goal or direct intent. The perpetrators are well aware that, in essence, they are using someone else’s property. And such actions are considered socially dangerous.
- The object here will be relations that relate to property.
- The objective side will be the extraction of material benefits through deliberate deception or gross abuse of trust.
- Any property acts as an object. Moreover, its owner can be not only a private person, but also an organization (including a state-owned one) or a commercial enterprise.
If all the above signs are present, then we can conclude that this is indeed a selfish crime against property.
Damage to property due to negligence
Note! In cases where damage caused by negligence does not fall under the definition of “major” and is not related to the circumstances specified in Article 168 of the Criminal Code, unintentional actions do not entail liability under the law.
The culprit must compensate the owner of the damaged item for losses, although in some cases he can avoid even this responsibility. Thus, according to paragraphs 2-3 of Article 1064 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, you can not pay for damage to property if he acted at the request of the owner, or the damage to things was caused not by his manipulations, but by third-party circumstances that arose during the same period of time.
Types of damage
To qualify an offense, it is necessary to establish the culprit, the reasons why the damage to other people’s things occurred and the amount of damage caused. To simplify this task , there are several areas in which property damage differs:
- intentional or unintentional;
- causing minor, significant or large-scale damage;
- damage to state property or private property.
Damage to state property
State property includes everything located in public places: park benches, fences, public transport, stadiums, school buildings and other educational institutions, including property located in them. Damage can be expressed in the desecration of objects with obscene inscriptions, breaking, destruction or burning.
The perpetrators are punished in accordance with the Code of Administrative Offenses if the cost of damage does not exceed 5,000 rubles. If the damage is more significant, the penalties provided for by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are applied.
Damage to private property
Private property is property owned by a specific citizen who has the full right to dispose of it at his own discretion. It is not always possible to protect things from damage or destruction, whether due to unintentional actions of a person or intentional damage to items.
The following are some examples of damage to private property:
- Damage to property in the store. Implies intentional or unintentional damage to goods or equipment located in the store.
- Damage to things in a hotel during temporary stay.
- Damage to the employer's belongings due to negligent performance of official duties or careless handling.
- Damage to neighbors' property due to flooding of their apartment.
- Damage to property by ex-spouses due to strained relationships.
- Damage to objects and belongings by the tenant in the apartment he rents.
A few examples of minor property damage: a broken plate in a restaurant; a bag torn in a public place; scratched car; broken glass at school; broken chair leg in the office.
In practice, there are a huge number of options for damaging or destroying other people's things. Each violation carries a specific penalty.
Intentional damage to someone else's property
The presence of intent, that is, awareness of the damage caused, is a key factor in holding liable for damage to other people's things, vehicles, real estate and other property. At the same time, the reasons that prompted the defendant to take out his emotions on someone else’s property are not important according to the law. Jealousy, interpersonal conflict, confrontation in the work collective - the law requires that all these quarrels be regulated in a steam field, without resorting to violent actions, for which the culprit will have to answer, regardless of whether he is right in the main dispute.
For the law, motive is important only when it is related to:
- hooliganism, that is, expressed disrespect for order and social principles;
- inciting hatred towards one of the social groups on ethical, religious or other grounds.
Both factors are aggravating and increase the responsibility of the culprit. Also, more severe punishment is provided for those who used a method dangerous to society to damage someone else’s property, or for those whose actions unintentionally led to serious consequences, including human casualties.
In addition, a significant factor in determining the type of liability to which the attacker will be held is the amount of damage caused - the cost of hopelessly damaged property or the amount of funds required for repairs and restoration work. Damage is considered significant if it exceeds 56 thousand rubles, large - from a quarter of a million, especially large - from a million rubles.
Object and subject
One of the functions of the state is to protect any property, regardless of its form. For this reason, she is the target of a crime.
The subject of a crime can be any property belonging to another person
It doesn’t matter what type it is. The legislator means both movable and immovable things
An additional indicator is the cost of the lost item or the cost of its restoration. The opportunity to bring a person to justice arises only in cases where there is a large amount of damage (250 thousand rubles was established in 2003, since then the amount has not been indexed), in this case it will be necessary. The inflation that has accumulated since then is reason to reconsider this threshold, since it is now much lower than the cost of any new car.
What to do if your property is destroyed
The first question that the owner of the damaged object must answer in order to determine the procedure for his actions to compensate for the damage is the identity of the offender. If it is known, for example, the property was damaged during a quarrel with the owner, the incident was seen by third parties or was recorded by CCTV cameras, and the intruder can be easily identified from the footage, the owner of the property can choose: contact the police or limit himself to a civil lawsuit. If not, you need to submit an application to law enforcement agencies to identify the attacker and bring him to justice.
The next step is to determine the amount of damage. Legal entities of all forms report damage to property or damage caused to it in order to write off unusable items from the balance sheet or allocate funds for repairs. Citizens participate in drawing up a property damage report in the event of damage to housing, for example, by flooding. In other cases, evidence of damage is confirmed by photographs and remains of the destroyed item, documents on the ownership of the damaged item, purchase receipts, registration certificates for vehicles and gadgets and other documents confirming the market value of the broken item. If the damaged property needs to be repaired, you will need a certificate from a specialized organization about the cost of the work. These documents will help the police determine the amount of damage to qualify a crime under the administrative or criminal code, and the victim - to determine the amount of the claim for recovery.
Further, the victim’s actions depend on whether law enforcement officers were involved in the case. If:
- No, then the owner of the property can prepare a claim for damages (the document allows the issue to be resolved in a pre-trial mode) and a statement of claim to the court.
- Yes, it is more reasonable to wait for the completion of the investigation, which will reliably establish the identity of the attacker and prepare evidence of his guilt. Article 44 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation allows victims to submit documents to the court with a claim against the defendant throughout the period of the police investigation and during the trial of a criminal or administrative case.
Drawing up an act of damage to someone else's property
Authorized officials are involved in drawing up acts. In case of damage to the property of a legal entity - employees of the company or institution, in case of damage to the property of a private person, for example, an apartment and interior items, employees of the servicing management company. In addition to the owner of the damaged premises, neighbors are often involved in drawing up the act, invited as witnesses. The document contains several required parts:
- name, number, date and place of compilation;
- information about the organization that suffered damage or the private owner of the damaged property;
- a detailed description of the damaged property - from the address of the apartment to the make and model of damaged equipment;
- preliminary damage assessment;
- the cause of damage and details of the culprit, if known;
- data and signatures of all participants in drawing up the act.
Actions of the victim
The first thing to do if you find yourself in such a situation is to try to objectively assess the harm caused to you. At the same time, it must be documented and expressed in specific numbers. Even in the event of damage to property due to negligence and by a person familiar to you, it is better to resort to this method.
If there is such a possibility, then it is better to conduct an independent examination so that the expert can compare the market value of the object at the time when it was damaged or destroyed, taking into account the amount of money required to restore it.
Is it possible to withdraw a statement from the police? You can read about this in this article.
What does an expert usually consider and what difficulties does he encounter? When assessing damage to, for example, a vehicle, it is always difficult to assess it if it has been burned. Usually a specialist finds out its real price on the market, as well as any breakdowns that occurred before, accidents, etc.
Try to first conduct an independent examination of the damaged property.
If we are talking about very expensive equipment, then they consider the brand, technical characteristics, etc.
Let's say damage or destruction was caused to a house or apartment. Then their value is taken from the cadastral register and the price of repair work.
In the case of damage to luxury items, a receipt is almost always required to determine its actual value, since it is usually kept when purchasing such items.
If the case is under the article for damage to state property, then the examination is carried out by the authorities responsible for this.
After you have achieved an adequate examination, you need to contact the police department to conduct an investigation.
The procedure for collecting compensation for damage to someone else's property
If the amount of losses does not exceed 50 thousand rubles, you can contact the magistrate at your place of residence or the defendant’s registered address, if more - to the district court. The application is submitted on a standard court form, which can be obtained from the office or on the official Internet resources of the judicial authorities. The document contains:
- the name of the court in which the claim is filed;
- details of the plaintiff and defendant;
- statement of the circumstances of the incident;
- information about witnesses, if any;
- amount of claim;
- legal basis for recovery;
- list of documents confirming the stated facts.
If the application to the court is filed as a civil claim, the police were not involved in the case, or the actions of the culprit did not contain elements of a crime, but still caused material harm to the applicant, the state duty is calculated based on the amount claimed for collection. If the claim is supplemented by police materials that confirm that the damage was caused during the commission of a crime, there is no need to pay a state fee.
Damage to someone else's property by minors
Children and adolescents are not subject to criminal or administrative liability until the age of 16. During this period, parents or guardians are responsible for their actions, including financially. In addition, if a child has committed an offense, his adult representatives are additionally charged under Article 5.35 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation for improper education of a minor. The sanction of the article involves a fine for the offender’s parents in the amount of 100 – 500 rubles.
The exceptions are two provisions of the Criminal Code, according to which a teenager will be independently responsible for damage to property from the age of 14:
- Article 214 – vandalism, that is, damage to public property (transport, street equipment, etc.) or actions offensive to society in relation to buildings and structures. Punishment can be imposed in the form of compulsory or correctional labor, arrest for 3 months or a fine of up to 40 thousand rubles. If the motive for the offense was interethnic, religious or political hostility, the defendant faces up to 3 years of restriction or imprisonment.
- Part 2 of Article 167 applies when someone else’s property was damaged as a result of arson, fire or other action dangerous to others, as well as if the attackers proceeded from hooligan motives and in the case when people were injured during the incident. Those involved face up to 5 years of forced labor or imprisonment.
Note! If the court makes a decision on a monetary penalty, the parents are obliged to help the minor find funds to pay the fine, but the criminal record will already be reflected in the child’s biography.
The essence of the problem
Every citizen has the legal right to dispose of his property at his own discretion. This fully applies to both any owner and the direct owner. But sometimes the actions of other persons, committed through abuse of trust or direct deception, cause property damage to a citizen. Issues related to such situations are considered by Art. 165 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Moreover, such actions are characterized by two circumstances:
- Absence of any obvious signs of theft. That is, we are not talking about theft here. The offender did not steal the property. He disposed of it in his own interests, while depriving the owner of his legal right.
- The damage was committed on a large scale. As a result of unlawful actions of third parties, the owner did not receive a certain part of the possible income from his property. Here we can rather talk about lost profits.
This is exactly how this crime is described in Part 1 of Art. 165 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. An example of such a violation could be:
- unauthorized access to the Internet by using someone else's login or password;
- unauthorized check-in of guests by a hotel employee without appropriate registration;
- evasion of mandatory payment for electricity and others.
Part 2 of this article deals with the same violation, but under more serious circumstances:
a) the actions were committed by an organized group or several persons by prior conspiracy;
b) the damage caused is assessed as particularly large.
Offenses committed in this way will be subject to legal punishment.
