The Target Costs Only

Parliamentarians during the plenary session adopted a package of bills establishing the obligation of housing management organizations to use the funds collected from residents only for the purpose of maintaining and repairing the housing stock in the second reading. Corresponding changes have been made to the Housing Code.

Along with this, amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses and the Criminal Code provide for administrative and criminal liability for the expenditure of funds collected from tenants to operate the houses in which they live, not for their intended purpose. By analogy with the mechanism for monitoring the targeted use of budgetary funds, it is the Accounting Chamber that will verify the management companies spend the means of tenants.

The Chairman of the Supreme Council Alexander Shcherba and the head of the profile committee on State Regional Policy Oleg Vasiliy are the authors of the law-in-draft. Earlier the issue was considered at the meeting of the Committee.

In the course of the discussion, the Committee's deputies drew attention to the fact that the most effective form of relationship between tenants and a management organization is a contract. By paying for the maintenance of the house, tenants have the right to know and choose exactly where the funds collected from them will go, how much work will be done on the house. This is the subject of contractual relations. Today, management companies, in most cases, do not seek to conclude contracts for the management of the house and determine the list of works for its maintenance and repair independently. Therefore, the legislators proposed to provide for liability in relation to management organizations that do not want to enter into a contract with tenants. This norm was also taken into account in the adopted today legislations.