Privatization of official housing: myth or reality?

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One of the conditions for concluding an employment contract between an organization and an employee may be the provision of official living space to the latter. As a rule, square meters are issued for the period of work and after dismissal the employee is required to leave the premises. No one wants to lose their home, especially when there is nowhere to move. Therefore, many are interested in the question of whether it is possible to retain a service apartment through privatization, and if so, how to do this correctly? Let's figure it out.

New law on the privatization of departmental housing

Office premises are residential premises provided to employees of organizations on the basis of employment contracts.

There are two types of housing:

• which belongs directly to the enterprise;
• which belongs to the state, and the enterprise only manages it (departmental).

In the first case, the decision on the possibility or impossibility of privatization is made by the management of the enterprise alone, in the second, the employer will only be an intermediary between you and the actual owner, so it will be much more difficult to obtain consent.

According to current legislation, upon termination of the contract, tenants must voluntarily leave the premises.

Expert opinion

Stanislav Evseev

Lawyer. Experience 12 years. Specialization: civil, family, inheritance law.

The exceptions are:

• close relatives of deceased or missing employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other law enforcement agencies;
• close relatives of employees who died while performing work duties on the employer’s premises;
• citizens who retired due to old age while working at the enterprise that provided the apartment;
• disabled people of the first and second groups who lost their ability to work due to the fault of the employer;
• the poor.

These categories cannot be evicted from departmental housing, even forcibly, although they cannot privatize it without the consent of the owner.

Arbitrage practice

A striking example of resolving a controversial issue was the statement of claim, which was considered in the Yaroslavl region. The plaintiff went to court to protect his interests and the rights of the minor child who lives with him. On the merits of the matter, he reported the following:

1. In 1988, my father got a job at a company that gave him a service apartment.
2. In 1998, he quit his job, but the employer did not indicate the need to evict him, so he continued to live in the allocated apartment.
3. At the moment, the father has died, and the son and his child are registered and live in the indicated premises.
4. The plaintiff decided to privatize the living space and found out that this property was transferred to the balance of the city.
5. He applied to the local administration with a request for privatization, but was refused due to the lack of a social lease agreement.
6. The request to conclude an agreement was rejected on the grounds that this premises is official and is listed in a special housing stock.

Due to the fact that the plaintiff has been living in the premises for a long time, and his right to stay there was not challenged by the previous owner of the property, the court decided to fully satisfy the applicant’s demands and allow him to carry out the privatization procedure in equal shares for himself and the minor.

Decision of October 19, 2021 in case No. 2-3494/2017

• Look

Is it possible to privatize a service apartment?

According to statistics provided by employees of the special fund of the Russian Federation, it is clear that the privatization of official housing is carried out very rarely, but if there are compelling reasons, it is still possible to transfer it into ownership.

Only employees who have worked for a long time in the organization that provided them with a roof over their heads can apply for office apartments.

Moreover, according to current legislation, only municipal or state housing is subject to privatization. Therefore, before starting the procedure, it is necessary, with the consent of the owner of the residential property, to transfer it from “official” to “municipal”.

State registration

State registration of real estate is a mandatory procedure that is carried out after any change of rights. Owners who have privatized official living space can exercise the full range of their rights only after state registration.

The state registration procedure is carried out as follows:

1. Documents are being prepared. Identity cards of all co-owners, technical and cadastral passport, privatization agreement.
2. A state fee is paid for entering information.
3. A statement is being written.

The entire package of documents is submitted to the specialist for registration.

You can undergo state registration by submitting papers to Rosreestr or MFC. The re-registration process takes no more than 10 days, after which you can dispose of the property at your own discretion. The new owner can sell the home, rent it out, donate it, bequeath it, or make it the subject of collateral. Additional consent for such actions from the former owner is not required.

Reasons

The main basis for privatization is the employment contract, which the employee must have. In addition, persons who are not bound by formal labor obligations with the owner company will not be able to begin converting housing owned by the special fund into private ownership.

So, privatization will become possible if:

• you have a rental agreement for office space;
• the owner of the property (department, enterprise, institution) is not against it;
• work experience at this enterprise – 10 or more years;
• duration of actual residence in the apartment – ​​10 years or more;
• You have not previously participated in free privatization.

If, in addition to the owner’s consent, all conditions are met, you have the right to submit a corresponding application to the employer and, if he allows (which happens extremely rarely), begin the procedure.

Regulatory regulation

The privatization procedure is regulated by Law No. 1541-1, which was put into effect on July 4, 1991. This regulatory act defines the conditions for participation in the program for obtaining municipal property into private ownership. There are three main criteria:

1. The procedure is free of charge.
2. The decision to privatize is made independently and voluntarily.
3. You can privatize living space once.

For many years, the Law had deadlines for implementation, which limited the possibilities of using the right to privatization. But in February 2021, this restriction was lifted so as not to infringe on the interests of those citizens who did not have time to exercise their right.

Legislative norms governing the privatization procedure establish some restrictions. According to them, the following cannot be privatized:

1. Emergency residential facilities.
2. Rooms located in dormitory buildings.
3. Residential area, which is located on the territory of closed military camps.
4. Service housing.

Other reasons for refusal are considered unfounded and are subject to challenge.

Who is eligible

The right to privatization arises for people who have worked for 10 or more years in one of the following areas:

• budgetary (doctors, teachers, deputies and others);
• law enforcement agencies (employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, FSB, Ministry of Internal Affairs);
• in the public service (judges, customs officers);
• agricultural or environmental (fishermen, foresters, etc.).

Narrow-profile specialists have an advantage, for whom they try to create all the conditions to increase productivity, so these people can privatize a service apartment after 5 years of work at the company that issued it.

This is how government agencies are trying to attract valuable, promising personnel to work in the regions.

Where to start, where to turn?

How to privatize service housing? First of all, before starting the procedure, you need to contact the direct owner of this property, namely the state represented by one or another body.

By contacting your superiors, in particular the person distributing official housing, you need to declare your intentions, ask for assistance, or hear the reason why privatization in this case is not possible.

If the idea has been approved, moreover, you are ready to assist in issuing the necessary papers and documents, you can proceed to the next step.

The procedure is formalized by the Rosreestr body, which is where citizens living in the regions can apply; to do this, they just need to find the nearest branch. If we are talking about residents of Moscow and the Moscow region, then they should contact the Housing Policy Department of their district or district.

Read our article about how to privatize an apartment through the MFC. Find out also how to determine whether your apartment is privatized or not.

Office rental agreement

Only an officially registered employee can enter specialized housing for permanent residence and only after signing a contract for the rental of office premises (warrant). This is the only document on the basis of which the employee and his family have the right to live in a company apartment.

The rental agreement must be in writing; oral agreements on the provision of housing have no legal force. All such documents are urgent, so they must indicate the period of validity (either a specific date or the period while the citizen works at the enterprise).

Upon expiration of the period, the employee and his family must move out of the occupied living space, unless otherwise stated in the conditions.

The rental agreement must contain the following information:

• about the subject of rental (address, total area and other technical characteristics of housing)
• on the rights and obligations of the parties
• on the number of residents (tenant plus all members of his family, including those born in the apartment).
• about the terms of the contract and the grounds for its termination.

Improper fulfillment of the terms of the employment contract by employees or members of his family gives the employer the right to unilaterally terminate the agreement early and demand eviction from the tenants.

Who can't be evicted?

In some cases, an employer does not have the right to demand the eviction of a former employee. This exception applies to the following categories of citizens:

• Employees of the Federal Security Service.
• Employees of internal affairs departments.
• Customs officers.
• Military personnel.
• Pensioners (old age).
• Employees who lost their health while performing duties under an employment contract.

The above categories of citizens can be evicted only if they are provided with alternative living space. But the state does not always have such an opportunity.

Procedure and procedure for privatization of official housing, apartments

Privatization of service housing should begin with its transfer from special to municipal, therefore, first of all, it is necessary to obtain the consent of the apartment owner.

If the management of the enterprise does not want to satisfy the demands of the employee (which is logical - rarely is anyone ready to just voluntarily part with real estate), the latter can try to obtain permission for privatization through the courts (the chances are small, but if there are good reasons, they still exist).

Order

If you decide to re-register a service apartment as your property, be patient and begin to act in the following order:

• Step 1. Obtain permission from the property owner;
• Step 2. Change the status of the apartment from “special” to “municipal”;
• Step 3. We prepare technical and cadastral documentation for the property;
• Step 4. We draw up a request and submit it directly to the local administration or through employees of the State Budgetary Institution “My Documents”;
• Step 5. Contact Rosreestr to re-register ownership rights and obtain a certificate.

After the service apartment is transferred to municipal housing, privatization will be carried out in accordance with the general procedure.

Procedure

The transfer of official housing into private ownership is a complex and energy-intensive process, so each stage should be approached with the utmost care and responsibility.

Statement

The application for privatization (for the administration) must indicate:

• full name of the registration authority;
• last name, first name, patronymic and his passport details;
• contact details of the applicant (address, telephone);
• characteristics of the property and its exact address;
• a request for permission to privatize an apartment that was successfully transferred from a service apartment to a municipal one;
• number of residents.

Required documents

To transfer housing into municipal ownership and then privatize it, you will need the following documents:

• application for change of housing status (to the employer);
• a local document stating that the official residential premises have been transferred to municipal ones (issued by the employer);
• one application for privatization or refusal from each apartment tenant (for the local administration);
• passports of all participants;
• extract from the house/apartment register (extended version);
• certificates stating that none of the residents had previously participated in privatization as an adult;
• an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate about other residential real estate owned by the applicants;
• rental agreement;
• cadastral documentation (technical plan, housing passport).

This is an approximate list of documents; in some cases, administration or Rosrestr employees may require additional certificates, for example, consent to the privatization of housing from the guardianship and trusteeship authority.

Expenses

Privatization itself is carried out by the state free of charge, that is, you will not have to pay anything for departmental housing, but the work of employees of government agencies must be paid in a strictly defined amount:

• state duty for the privatization of housing in the local administration - 2000 rubles per person;
• extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate – 200 rubles for each;
• carrying out cadastral work from 10,000 rubles;
• issuance of a technical housing plan – 1000 rubles;
• Notary services - according to the price list of the office.

Deadlines

After the Government made privatization permanent, there was no longer any need for haste; now you can re-register an apartment at any convenient time.

But keep in mind that you can sell, donate, exchange and carry out other transactions only with your own housing, and the approximate period for privatization of service apartments is 5-6 months, provided that there are no problems with obtaining consent and everything will be done without trial.

Therefore, it is better to resolve all issues regarding changing the status of housing in advance, namely:

• the department will consider applications for 2 months;
• The translation will take another 15-30 days to be agreed upon;
• It will take a month for the application to be reviewed by the administration;
• Property rights will be registered in Rosreestr for 14 days.

Terms and cost of registration

Rosreestr formalizes the procedure within two or three weeks after submitting the documents. Usually this procedure takes up to twenty days .

If we talk about a multifunctional center, then the amount of time increases here, due to the fact that there is now an intermediary between the Rosreestr and the citizen.

In order to receive the service, you must pay a state fee .

In Russia today its value is five hundred rubles.

Reasons for going to court.

The main reason for going to court when privatizing service apartments is the employer’s refusal to part with his own real estate and transfer it from the special fund to the balance of the municipality.

As judicial practice shows, in most cases, judges take the side of home owners when considering such cases. Therefore, if you understand that you do not have serious grounds for retaining your rights to real estate at the end of the lease agreement for office space, you don’t even have to try to sue the employer.

Who benefits from this?

Without a doubt, if you lived in this apartment for quite a long period and invested your money in its repair and maintenance, then it makes sense to become the legal owner of this living space.

Privatization will allow you to subsequently dispose of this living space at your personal discretion. Nobody will restrict the sale of housing. It can also be donated or rented.

It is also advisable to obtain ownership of departmental housing for citizens planning to change their place of work, since if the contract with the employer who provided you with living space is terminated, it will have to be vacated, and if you do not have your own apartment, you will have to live in a rented one.