Obtaining official housing in 2021: procedure, documents and features

Today we can note a fairly large number of citizens and families who live in official housing. Sometimes it is not possible to privatize such real estate, but often many people do not register official housing as personal property only because they do not know how to do it.

A service apartment belongs to the state, municipality or a specific organization and is provided to employees along with their families. This property is classified as a specialized housing stock and before receiving it, a rental agreement is concluded between the owner of the property and the employee. The term of this hire is equal to the term of service. Accordingly, upon dismissal, the person and his family must move out. The only exception is a certain category of persons, which can be found later in the article. As with any

When hiring, an employee has the right only to live in a departmental apartment and register himself and his family members living with him in it.

Every person, regardless of their status, should be aware of their rights, especially when it comes to such a controversial issue as the registration of official housing as property.

Law on official housing

There is no single law on official housing that is suitable for all situations. General provisions are contained in the Housing Code of the Russian Federation. Specification should be sought depending on the field of work. For example, military personnel refer to the Law on the Status of Military Personnel and Order of the Ministry of Defense dated September 30, 2010 No. 1280. If the apartment is in municipal ownership, then you need to look at the relevant administrative regulations of the locality.

The housing code norms on what service housing is highlight the following features of such living space:

• the living space belongs to the state or municipal fund;
• provided in connection with the performance of official duties for temporary residence.

The premises provided can only be isolated and fully suitable for habitation. Today apartments meet these requirements. Rooms in dormitories are not official and are provided if it is not possible to provide a separate apartment.

The general rules for the provision of official housing are as follows:

• a service apartment is issued to a person who works in an enterprise, institution, holds a government position or performs service;
• you can live in the provided premises for the period predetermined by the employment (service) contract - it is the employment relationship that determines the possibility of using the living space;
• the final decision to provide residential premises or not is made by the owner;
• It is impossible to obtain square meters as property, but there is a procedure for circumventing this rule.

Important! In general, the procedure for providing official housing is the same, with a number of nuances that are determined by the owning department.

Difference from social hiring

Residential premises under an employment contract are significantly different in status from municipal premises, which are rented out under social tenancy agreements. Legally, the first refers to a specialized fund.

The differences are as follows:

• municipal apartments are given to those in need due to poor housing conditions, service apartments are given to employees and employees in connection with an employment contract;
• Normatively, social hiring is regulated by Section III, specialized hiring – by Section IV of the RF Housing Code;
• Housing for social rent can be privatized, but specialized housing cannot be privatized.

It is in connection with the possibility of privatization that the most questions arise. Apartments that are on the balance sheet of the municipality may or may not have official status.

The status of official housing is assigned by a special decision of the municipal authorities. How to find out whether a municipal apartment or a service one is to ask the owner for a decision on assigning such status. If there is no such decision, then the apartment does not have official status, which means it can be privatized.

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 is eligible to receive

The following apply for temporary use of official housing:

• civil servants;
• deputies of any level;
• employees of various institutions with state participation (for example, Russian Railways);
• teachers, doctors, firefighters, police officers;
• persons serving in the Ministry of Internal Affairs;
• military.

The list of those eligible for housing is open. Housing legislation does not contain prohibitions on providing individual citizens with this type of living space, so you need to find out about the possibility of obtaining premises for living in your structure.

The main condition is that the citizen should not have other apartments on the territory of the subject in which he could live during his working life.

How relevant is the question?

Even taking into account the fact that in comparison with previous years the number of service apartments has noticeably decreased, they do not lose their relevance. Departmental housing is intended for residence by persons who have committed themselves to labor obligations with its owner. This means that such employees do not have personal living space for any reason. Such real estate is provided to military personnel, workers of public utilities, emergency services, foresters and fishermen, as well as for government and tax officials. All criteria, conditions and requirements for persons wishing to obtain official living space are fixed by the Housing Code of the Russian Federation.

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Often, service housing is not communal in nature, that is, separate apartments are issued for one person or one family. Decisions on transferring residential real estate to the specialized category are made by the local council after the owner of this property submits a corresponding application there. As Russian legislation states, after the transfer, the privatization of such objects becomes impossible, which is due to the protection of citizens from abuse of their rights. But there are usually exceptions to the rules.

Receipt procedure

The general procedure for obtaining official housing can be divided into two stages:

1. Submitting an application for recognition as needing housing. At this stage, the person is recognized as having the right to a special apartment and gets in line.
2. Next, an application is submitted for the provision of living space directly, an agreement is concluded and the family moves into the apartment.

How a service apartment is provided will be discussed in more detail below.

List of documents

To be placed in the queue - documents for obtaining official housing:

• passports of the employer and his family members (for children - birth certificates);
• marriage or divorce certificate;
• certificate of family composition (house register) from the place of permanent residence;
• an employment contract or document confirming election to a position;
• an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate on the applicant’s rights to real estate;
• application for registration.

Attention! If official housing is provided from the municipal fund, the employer will need a petition to provide an apartment to the employee.

Additional documents for official housing will be needed after registration and for immediate receipt of an apartment. These include:

• application for an apartment;
• document on registration according to the previous application;
• all other documents on the list above.

The application forms provided are examples. The administration of a locality or region, as a rule, develops its own forms.

Procedure

Step-by-step procedure for obtaining office space:

1. We determine the owner of the apartment. At this stage, it is necessary to establish whose decision on moving in is to be received and which agency will sign the agreement. There are several options. This is the administration of a locality, the administration of a region, an authorized government body (ministry, department, committee, etc.), and the management of an enterprise. It’s better to start your search with your employer, who will tell you where exactly you need to apply.

1. We collect documents. The list above is an example. An exact list suitable for a specific situation can be obtained from employees of the competent department. You need to make a copy of each document, and take a package with the originals and copies to the appointment.

1. After completing all the certificates, we submit an application to be placed on the waiting list for those in need of housing. The application review period is up to 30 days. As part of the inspection, officials will determine whether there is a real need for the provision of office accommodation. In any case, the applicant is given a written response. The refusal can be appealed to a higher authority or court.

1. Having received a positive decision, we wait in line for an apartment. Next, we submit an application for the provision of an apartment directly. The application must be accompanied by the documents from the previous paragraph and a positive decision on placement in the queue. The application is reviewed within 30 days. Based on the application, a decision is issued to provide residential premises and a rental agreement is concluded with the applicant.

1. We conclude a rental agreement and move into the apartment. Previously, orders were issued for moving in, but now they have been replaced by rental agreements. Features and a sample contract are in the next paragraph.

Attention! The rules for the provision of specific housing may change, be shortened or supplemented depending on local regulations. For example, to obtain premises for a position in a commercial company, one application is sufficient - immediately for the allocation of premises.

Conclusion of an agreement

The rental agreement for residential premises is concluded between the owner and the applicant. The contract must indicate the tenant's family members who are granted the right to use the apartment and live in it. An important feature is that the agreement is valid during the term of employment.

The text of the contract specifies the responsibilities of the tenant and his family:

• keep the premises in proper condition and use them strictly for their intended purpose;
• make rent payments, utilities and carry out cosmetic repairs;
• keep the premises in their original form and prevent reconstruction or redevelopment.

The text regulates in detail the main issues of interaction between the owner and the tenant.

A sample rental agreement is available for your reference.

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.

Termination of an agreement

The rental agreement for premises is terminated in the following situations:

• the term of the employment contract or election to a position has expired;
• by agreement of the parties - at any time;
• at the request of the employer - at any time upon written application;
• at the request of the owner - only through the court if the tenant violates the terms of the contract.

In any case, after termination of the contractual relationship, the apartment is transferred back to the owner. If the tenant refuses to voluntarily leave the premises, he can be forcibly evicted through the court and then the FSSP.

Who can't be evicted

You cannot forcibly evict from an apartment:

These categories must be provided with other housing within the city upon eviction.

First steps

The family of a serviceman who has decided to register ownership of housing should first of all determine the status of the apartment it occupies in the management of the relevant body of the Ministry of Defense.

The process cannot be carried out if the housing is located in a closed military camp. This type of residential premises is of particular strategic defense importance and cannot be transferred to private ownership.

In addition, according to general rules, the privatization of apartments in buildings that have the status of emergency and subject to demolition .

If the apartment does not have such status, the process should begin by contacting the privatization department of a certain municipality to determine the package of documents. In this case, the applicant must be the military man himself or his authorized representative (read about privatization through a realtor).

Sample application for privatization of an apartment for military personnel.

You can find out whether it is possible to privatize a share in an apartment from our article.

Military personnel

The status of military personnel is regulated in more detail than in other structures. To obtain an apartment, a serviceman submits a report addressed to the head of the unit where the serviceman arrived for duty. Attached to the report are the standard documents listed above plus documents related to the service.

We published a detailed article about official housing for military personnel with document forms at this link.

Dormitory or rental

If there are no apartments available, with the consent of the serviceman, his family may be provided with a dormitory for living at the rate of at least 6 meters per person.

Military personnel also have the opportunity to take advantage of the sub-hire option. For renting housing, the employee will receive compensation from the budget according to the report. The size is as follows:

• capital and St. Petersburg - 15,000 rubles;
• cities and regional centers – 3,600 rubles;
• other settlements – 2,700 rubles.

The reality of privatization

In fact, the law prohibits the transfer of official housing into the ownership of the tenant, but the Housing Code of the Russian Federation does not provide for anything like this. However, at the same time, Article 4 of the first part of the law regarding the possibility of privatizing the housing stock states that objects related to official housing are not privatized. That is, you can hire them, but you can’t register them as personal property.

This is usually where many people end their search for answers about the possibility of privatization, which is a mistake and a hasty conclusion. The law is not perfect, so in this case there was a loophole. The same law that prohibits the privatization of a service fund, in its second part does not prohibit its owners from transferring housing to other persons. That is, the initiators of privatization may ultimately be the owners of real estate who rented it out to their employees.

In addition, the Constitution allows each individual region to adopt its own rules and conditions regarding the privatization of real estate. In any case, the final decision is made by the owner of the official housing. He can do this at his own request or at the request of the employee if he decides to give a positive answer.

Doctors and teachers

Doctors and teachers are another socially significant category of employees. There is no federal housing distribution program for them, so it is necessary to seek clarification:

• to the regional health department - doctors;
• to the regional Department of Education - to teachers.

As a rule, service housing is provided as part of health and education development programs in the region. The Department for State Property Management can also handle the distribution of premises, but specific conditions are developed by the relevant departments.

Why is the procedure needed?

Privatization of official housing is useful if the person living in it wants to obtain full rights to it. Therefore, it is worth saying that this procedure is very beneficial for the designer, but if departmental housing is perceived as temporary, then such a process is not necessary. But in order to decide whether it is worth making such a deal, you need to consider all its advantages and disadvantages in more detail .

After the property is registered, the employee can dispose of it at his own discretion, for example, sell, give, or inherit.

Advantages and disadvantages

The positive aspects of the privatization of official real estate are the following factors::

• Confidence that the apartment will not be taken away.
• Possibility of free disposal of the apartment.
• No need to pay rent.
• Privatized property can be inherited by relatives of the owners, and not by the organization that owned it.

There are also negative aspects to the privatization of such real estate, namely:

• Increase in the cost of housing and communal services.
• The maintenance of the apartment falls entirely on the shoulders of the new owner.
• There is a need to pay property tax, in accordance with Articles No. 400 and No. 401 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation.
• After the privatization of service housing, the owner can no longer count on free improvement of living conditions.

Russian Railways

Some Russian Railways employees need to live close to work - and the company provides them with this opportunity.

The procedure for providing office housing:

1. When concluding an employment contract, Russian Railways undertakes to provide an apartment.
2. Based on the contract, the employee is entered into the internal accounting database of those in need of residential space.
3. Next, the available apartments are distributed among the registered employees, and rental agreements are concluded.
4. After termination of the contract, the employee vacates housing within a month.

Special norms have been laid down for the provision of accommodation to Railway employees, which can be downloaded here.

Restrictions for the employee

The tenant of service housing must use it only for residential purposes. It is prohibited to use it:

• in business activities;
• for organizing business, warehouses, hotels;
• other use not for its intended purpose.

Is it possible to rent?

You cannot transfer the premises for rent or lease to another person (sublease) . If these violations are detected, the lessor goes to court. They are considered a valid reason for termination of the contract and eviction of the tenant. The court may impose other penalties in the form of a fine provided by law. Read more about penalties for illegal housing rentals here.

You will find more information about the procedure for registering a rental property on our website. In addition, you may need information about problems that may arise with tenants and ways to solve them, and about fraudulent rental schemes. Learn about the nuances of renting housing for long and short-term periods and how to organize a business renting apartments by the day.

Service rental housing is intended to create favorable living conditions for a certain category of citizens who have entered into employment contracts, but do not have their own housing. It is strictly regulated by the Housing Code of the Russian Federation and other legislative acts. All conditions, rights and obligations of the parties are stipulated in the Agreement. Compliance with it and hostel standards provides the opportunity to perform work duties without worrying about housing.

State and municipal civil servants

Civil servants receive the right to premises from the moment of concluding a contract for service and appointment to a position. Methodological issues regarding the distribution of premises are decided by the relevant department. The lease agreement is signed by the department authorized to dispose of state or municipal property.

Additionally, a civil servant may qualify for a one-time subsidy for the purchase of housing. It is provided for by the Law on Civil Service and Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of January 27, 2009 N 63.

Reasons for refusal

A few months after submitting documents to the privatization body, a written refusal may follow. This is a fairly common occurrence, especially if the serviceman collected documents on his own and is not very knowledgeable in legal matters.

Typical reasons for failure:

• lack of grounds for privatization for military personnel;
• incomplete list of documents;
• death of the applicant;
• lack of information about previous place of residence;
• already used right to free privatization;
• transfer of a serviceman to another region;
• illegal redevelopment of a privatized apartment.

If a serviceman considers the refusal to be unfounded, he can go to court to protect his rights or appeal the decision of the privatization body to higher authorities. But perhaps you just need to eliminate the shortcomings and submit the package of documents again. There are no restrictions in this case, but, of course, the applicant must have the legal right to seek privatization of the apartment.

If the apartment has undergone redevelopment, then even before submitting documents for privatization, it is necessary to obtain all permits from housing authorities and utility services. Otherwise, privatization may be refused.

Upon retirement

The Housing Code protects the rights of pensioners who rent housing provided by their service. Even if the tenancy agreement has terminated, it will not be possible to forcibly evict a pensioner.

To evict him, he must be provided with other housing, which must:

• be located on the same territory;
• be well-maintained;
• comply with technical standards.

At the same time, it is legal to ignore the size of the alternative apartment, as noted by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in paragraph 42 of Resolution No. 14 of July 2, 2009. A pensioner may be provided with a smaller apartment in exchange.

Legal requirements

The privatization of apartments by military personnel is regulated by the main Law “On Privatization...” No. 1541-1 of 07/04/91.
and Government Decree No. 512 of June 29, 2011. According to these legislative acts, military personnel who have served for 20 years receive the right to privatize departmental housing.

This right also applies to military personnel transferred to the reserve :

• according to the age;
• for health;
• by reduction;
• have served in the Armed Forces for over 10 years.

These categories can register ownership of an apartment, room, house from the municipal housing stock. Privatization of military housing can be carried out for any family member , subject to the renunciation of the share of other persons registered in the apartment.

According to legislative norms, military privatization provides for the possibility of family members of military personnel receiving no more than 20 square meters of living space for free. All surpluses must be purchased from the state according to the rules of paid privatization.

You can learn about how to privatize a cooperative apartment, who has the right to re-privatization, as well as in what cases a refusal may be received from our articles.

State registration

After any change of rights, this fact must be registered. After the owners privatize the housing and register them, they will have access to all rights to the apartment.

State registration is carried out in several steps:

1. preparation of documents: passports of privatization participants, privatization agreement, technical and cadastral passport for the property;
2. payment of state duty;
3. drawing up an application.

You can contact both Rosreestr and the MFC.

Duration of state registration is up to 10 working days. After its completion, owners have the right to dispose of housing at their own discretion. You can sell the property, rent it out, transfer it by will or deed of gift, or use it as collateral to obtain a bank loan. To carry out all these and other actions, it is no longer necessary to obtain permission from the former owner of the office premises.

Going to court

If the employer refuses to change the status of official housing to municipal, then the employee has the right to initiate legal proceedings. However, the courts usually side with the employer. The reason for refusing to satisfy the claim is the fact that the applicant does not have significant grounds for living in official housing after the expiration of the employment contract.

If the employer agrees to transfer housing into the ownership of the municipality, but administrative workers, having considered the application, made a negative decision, then the applicant has the right to go to court. In this case, he has a higher chance of achieving a positive court ruling.

To initiate legal proceedings

, you need to do the following.

1. Collect documents. They must prove the existence of grounds for the privatization of official housing. The more documents, the higher the chances of a positive court decision.
2. File a claim. It is recommended to seek help from an experienced lawyer who will reflect all the essential circumstances in the statement of claim and present arguments.
3. Pay the state fee for filing a claim. The payment receipt is attached to the general package of documents.

The defendant is informed of the upcoming court hearing. He has the right to justify his refusal, provide counterarguments, and provide evidence of his position.

The court examines documents, evidence and current circumstances, after which it makes a decision in accordance with Russian legislation.

In judicial practice, there are cases when the courts satisfied the demands of the plaintiffs. Thus, in the Yaroslavl region, the controversial issue of housing privatization was considered. In 1988, the plaintiff’s father found work at an enterprise that provided him with office housing, and 10 years later he quit. However, the employer did not demand eviction, and therefore the employee continued to live with his son in this apartment.

On the date of appeal to the judicial authority, the plaintiff’s father had already died, and the applicant, after the decision to privatize the housing, found out that it was on the city’s balance sheet. Administrative workers refused to privatize him due to the fact that the applicant did not have a social rent agreement. Moreover, he was also not allowed to conclude this agreement, since the apartment was a service apartment and was included in a separate housing stock.

The court satisfied the claims for two reasons: firstly, the plaintiff had already lived in that apartment for a long time, and secondly, the previous owner of the property did not challenge the right of residence of the employee and his son. After this, the plaintiff, together with his son, carried out the privatization procedure on legal grounds.