Utility bills account for a significant portion of a family's expenses . Some pay them regularly, on time and in full, fulfilling their obligations to service companies, while others ignore payments or transfer only part of the amount so as not to completely turn off gas or water.
Is it possible to save on utilities or even not pay for them at all? The answer to this question will be of interest to everyone, regardless of the area of housing and the level of utility bills.
In any case, the supply of basic resources will need to be paid for, but some services can be refused without harm to everyday life. How not to pay for utilities?
Peculiarities
It is necessary to pay for utilities provided by the Management Company, Housing Office, Homeowners' Association, as well as suppliers of basic resources. This is the responsibility of all homeowners - apartments, private houses. Only in exceptional cases can consumers refuse both services and payment for them:
- With the low quality of such services. If the supplier provides water with a dangerous composition or serves cold water instead of hot water, this fact should be recorded, and in the future, payment can be refused based on the report.
- You also need to notify the Management Company in case of prolonged absence from your place of residence, in which case it will also be possible to refuse most of the payments.
In order to always keep the house in excellent condition, under any circumstances you need to pay for the maintenance of the house, cleaning in it and in the surrounding area. You can cut off the supply of water or electricity, but you must pay for heat.
I don’t pay rent - the owner
The collection procedure is initiated by the relevant court decision .
This scenario for the development of the situation provides for the owners to take an inventory with the subsequent forced sale of the property .
The described property is subject to seizure for sale in case of non-payment within 5 days from the date of inventory.
Alternatively, in order to pay off the debt, bank accounts may be seized, as well as regularly withholding up to 50% of wages or income from other sources of earnings.
If the amount of debt exceeds 30 thousand rubles, the debtor may not be allowed to leave the country .
Read here where to contact if your hot water meter malfunctions.
Payment Responsibilities
At a general meeting, the residents of the house choose the Management Company and suppliers of heat, water, gas, and electricity. All home maintenance services must be provided on the basis of agreements between residents and suppliers.
If you study what we pay in the housing and communal services receipt, you can understand that all services are important, without them it is difficult to imagine a comfortable life and way of life. The apartment is provided with:
- warmth;
- cold and hot water;
- sewerage;
- drainage;
- gas;
- electricity.
Also, residents of apartment buildings pay for garbage removal, for cleaning the territory and the house, for the maintenance and repair of housing.
Both the owners of their own apartment and the tenants under a social tenancy agreement must pay the bills. The former pay for utilities immediately after signing the purchase and sale agreement, the latter - after signing the lease agreement.
ATTENTION! Payment for services is calculated taking into account the articles of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation.
The list of mandatory payments is given in articles 30 and 154, others .
Article 54 specifically states that residents will pay for heating even if they are absent for a long time, because it is impossible to disconnect one apartment in an apartment building from the heating system. Payment for services in a municipal apartment is carried out according to the provisions of Article 153 of the Housing Code. What services can you not pay for legally?
As can be seen from the provisions of the Housing Code, the presence of individual metering devices will allow you not to pay only for gas, light, water, electricity.
But home maintenance, which is usually performed as a whole (cleaning, repairs, maintenance) should be paid for. Even if the residents are absent, they transfer funds to the communal apartment every month.
Accrual of penalties
Due to the large number of debtors, the state began to apply such a measure of liability for late payment of housing and communal services as a penalty. As noted above, it begins to accrue from the second month of debt existence. In accordance with the law, the penalty is calculated:
- Persons who have not paid utility bills from the 31st day of incomplete payment, based on the calculation of 1/300 of the refinancing amount until the debt is repaid in full. If the debt lasts more than 91 days, the rate increases to 1/130.
- Owners of apartment buildings from 31 days of non-payment of payments for each day 1/130.
Refuse services
It is difficult to imagine that someone would want to live in an apartment without electricity, gas, water, or sewerage. And for these amenities you need to pay monthly, according to your invoices. The supply of such services is carried out under a contract, which specifies the responsibilities of both parties to the cooperation.
The consumer receives services and pays for them, and the supplier undertakes to deliver on a regular basis and maintain high quality. And it is precisely the quality, if it does not meet the standards, that can become the basis for refusing payment. What are the requirements for the quality of services in the housing sector?
- The characteristics of hot and cold water must comply with SanPin 2.1.4.1074-01. it also gives a requirement for pressure in the pipeline; it should be at the level of 0.03 MPa.
- Hot water must have a temperature of at least 60 degrees.
- Voltage requirements are determined by GOSTs 13109-97, 29322-92.
- The apartment must maintain a temperature of at least 18 degrees during the heating season. The temperature is measured at a level of 1 meter from the floor.
- GOST 5542-87 dictates the requirements for voltage in the electrical network.
Residents of apartments in an apartment building should know these parameters established at the legislative level, since deviation from them is a significant reason for recalculating the rent.
IMPORTANT! Services must be of high quality and constant.
You can also seek recalculation in the following situations:
- If there is no electricity for more than 2 hours.
- If the drainage system has not worked for 4 hours or more.
- If water, cold or hot, has not been supplied for more than 4 hours.
- When there was no gas supply for a total of 4 hours during the month.
- If the heating supply is interrupted for a period of more than 16 hours in cold weather.
Most likely, every home sooner or later faces the problems listed above. But few people know that due to such interruptions, the amount on the rent receipt can be significantly reduced.
Eliminate completely
There are a number of services that are not of global importance for creating normal living conditions in the home; you can refuse them completely. For example, there are also houses connected to a radio network; each apartment has a radio point. Nowadays it is possible to find out news on other types of radio or via the Internet; you can completely abandon such radio outlets.
Apartments equipped with cable television or a satellite dish can submit an application to disconnect from the collective antenna.
You can refuse to pay for house cleaning if it has not been done for a long time and this can be proven. You also don’t have to pay for the elevator if it’s not working most of the time or hasn’t been repaired for a long time.
Other services are more important; refusing gas or electricity will not only worsen the quality of life in a single living space, but may also affect the amenities in other apartments.
ATTENTION! You can only save significantly on many household amenities if you use them rationally and install meters in your home - for water, gas, electricity. Moreover, the installation of individual metering devices or communal meters has already become a legal requirement.
With meters, consumers decide for themselves how and how much resources to spend, and what they can limit themselves to. Significant savings can also be achieved by installing a communal heating meter .
Control over payments
When signing an agreement with the Management Company, the residents of the house stipulate a list of services that will be provided by the management company. And it is these services that should appear on rent receipts. But sometimes you can see unfinished home maintenance work there.
In this case, you should submit a collective or individual application to the Company’s management, achieve recalculation and exclusion of fictitious services.
If there is no response from the service company, you should contact the Housing Commission. The statement indicates who is issuing the illegal invoices and whether the Management Company has been contacted.
But it is also possible to pay for some services without a contract if residents consider them important and relevant. For example, the Management Company hired a concierge for the house, who was not provided for in the contract. The residents of the house appreciated this service highly and decided to include it in the contract list.
If the apartment owner agrees with the receipt, which also includes unforeseen services, he simply pays for them.
Absence of tenant
It is also possible not to pay for some utility services due to a long absence from your place of residence. We are talking about long business trips, treatment or rehabilitation in a medical institution, and departures for other reasons.
- When the departure is planned, you can notify the accounting department of the Management Company or Housing Office in advance.
- If there are metering devices in the apartment, the payment will decrease automatically, because the consumer will not use resources, there will be no consumption of electricity, water, or gas.
- If there are no devices and the payment is calculated according to the norms, the accounting department will reduce the payment accordingly.
- You can submit an application upon arrival, but in both the first and second cases you will need to prove your absence - a travel document, a medical card indicating the hospital, a voucher, or another document.
You can also achieve a recalculation if only one of the tenants, for whom payments are calculated according to the norm, will be absent from the apartment for some time.
But even a long departure will not be a reason for the apartment’s account not to receive payments for house maintenance, heating, repair services, etc.
Forcible debt collection
If you do not pay utility bills for a long time, the debts will be collected forcibly. Funds can be recovered through bailiffs as follows:
- for working persons - from wages at the place of work;
- for pensioners - from pensions and other official incomes;
- disabled persons - from disability benefits, except in cases where the person is deprived of legal capacity.
In addition, bailiffs can apply other measures of influence on debtors:
- seizure of real estate;
- seizure of seized property;
- introduction of restrictions on leaving the country;
- imposing restrictions on the performance of any actions with property.
Find out in more detail how utility debts are collected.
Mediator
One of the trends in the housing and communal services sector has been the emergence of organizations that act as intermediaries between consumers and Management Companies. As a result, current accounts appear on residents' receipts that are not related to the accounts of the management company. In fact, such actions are a violation of the law.
ATTENTION! According to the law, the residents of the house enter into an agreement with the Management Company and must transfer money only to its accounts.
Otherwise, citizens may not pay money to an organization with which they did not enter into an agreement for the provision of utility services. Cases of such intermediaries are increasingly ending up in court, where proceedings are being conducted about their misappropriation of other people's money and other fraud.
Lawyers advise citizens who have received receipts with settlement accounts from the Unified Settlement Center or another company not to pay rent, but to seek accounts from their Management Company.
Do I need to pay for garbage removal?
Based on the norms of the current legislation of the Russian Federation, management companies can include in the section “Repair and maintenance of common property” payment for the removal and disposal of solid household waste. Currently, payments for this service are calculated based on the area of the property owned by the citizen.
However, it is worth noting that there is a tendency to change the payment procedure for this service. It is quite possible that in the near future the calculation will be made based on the number of citizens registered at the residential property.
