Overpay housing and communal services. How not to overpay for housing and communal services and manage the quality of services

Yes, with the help of several simple steps you can significantly reduce your expenses by public utilities. For example, install meters, use energy-saving lamps, check what services you pay for without actually receiving them.

2. Apply for a subsidy

If you are a citizen of Russia, Belarus or Kyrgyzstan, you have permanent registration in Moscow and more than 10% of your family’s total income goes to pay for housing and communal services, and the income itself does not exceed the level established for receiving a subsidy, you can qualify for compensation for part of your expenses for housing and communal services . You can find out more about how to receive a subsidy for housing and communal services in our.

3. Complete the recalculation

If it is technically impossible to install meters in your apartment and you have been away for more than five full days, you can request a recalculation of your utility bills from the public services center or from your management company, depending on who sends you the utility bill. To recalculate you will need:

• an inspection report confirming that meters cannot be installed in your apartment;
• a document confirming your absence;
• a statement that you can write at an appointment at the “My Documents” center or at your management company.

You can read more about how to arrange a recalculation in our.

4. Install counters

• water meters will allow you to pay only for the water you use and, for example, not pay for hot water when it is turned off in the summer to prevent pipes;
• Make sure you have a multi-tariff electricity meter. With it, you will be able to pay for electricity at reduced rates during the half-peak zone (from 10:00 to 17:00; 21:00–23:00) and night zone (from 23:00 to 07:00);
• general house heat meters In accordance with Part 5 of Art. 13 Federal Law No. 261 of November 23, 2009.">must stand in all residential buildings, if technically possible. If, in addition to such a meter, you install regulators on the radiators in the apartment, then in winter you will be able to install comfortable temperature not with the help of an open window, but with the help of these regulators, thus saving heat. Do not cover radiators with screens, furniture, or thick curtains so that heat can spread unhindered in the room. Do not leave windows and doors in hallways open. The more heat loss in your home is reduced, the less you will pay. Check with your management company about the possibility of installing regulators. You can find her contacts on the portal.

You can find out how to install and register meters from our.

5. Turn off the radio

If the radio point does not work in your apartment, but the receipt for payment of housing and communal services indicates the “radio and notification” service, you can refuse to pay for this service by submitting an application to turn off the radio point.

If you receive a single payment document (UPD):

• submit an application to turn off the radio point at the public services center.

If instead of the EPD you receive another receipt for housing and communal services:

• contact the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Russian Broadcasting and Warning Networks";
• Check with your management company about the possibility of submitting an application. You can find her contacts on the portal.

Attach to the application a receipt for disconnecting the radio point, a certificate from the “My Documents” government services center about the absence of debt. Be sure to take your passport with you.

6. Turn off the shared TV antenna

If you pay for cable or satellite TV, or don't watch TV at all, you don't have to pay for a community TV antenna. To do this, check with the management company who is the provider of these services for you and write an application; be sure to take your passport with you. You can find the contacts of your management company on the portal.

Sergey Krekov, CEO CleverEstate Management Company continues to write an author's column on the pages of RBC Real Estate on housing and communal services issues. The author tells how to analyze a payment slip and not fall for the tricks of unscrupulous building managers.

Surely many still remember the times when payment receipts were small books, the pages of which had to be filled out manually. And today we discover every month in our mailbox already completed form. All that remains is to sign and pay? Let me give you a couple of practical tips.

In the payment document that we receive monthly, four groups of payments can be distinguished:

1. Payment for the maintenance and repair of residential premises.

2. Payment for consumed resources: cold and hot water, water disposal (aka sewerage), heating.

3. Payment for additional services. The most standard set is a locking device, an antenna, a radio point and a whole range of various services that have already become familiar to many citizens (concierges, security, landscaping, facade work, etc.).

4. Contributions to major renovation. In Moscow, this line is not yet included in receipts, although, according to the authorities, in 75 of the 86 regions of the Russian Federation this expense item has already appeared.

If, for example, tariffs have changed or you are entitled to any benefits, the payment slip must contain this information. It is usually given in the smallest font.

Let's go through the list in more detail from top to bottom. The amount of payment for the maintenance and repair of apartments for Moscow residents in 2014. regulated by Moscow government decree No. 748-PP dated November 26, 2013. Currently, the tariffs approved on January 1, 2014 are in effect. The next planned increase will take place on November 1st. This information is open and can be easily found on the Internet.

Carefully study what you are about to sign up for. And don’t rush to pay without studying.

For the area occupied within the established standards for tenants of residential premises owned by the city, as well as homeowners who have a single residential premises and are registered in it, the tariff falls in the range of 7.53-15.52 rubles. for 1 sq. m depending on the set of amenities, floor of residence and percentage of wear and tear of the house. For area occupied in excess of the established norms, both for rent and as property, as well as for owners who have more than one residential premises or are not registered in it, the range is 13.24 - 24.53 rubles. for 1 sq. m. The established standards are as follows: for one resident - 33 sq. m. m total area, for two - 42 sq. m, for three or more - 18 sq. m per person.

If the payment indicates a tariff that is higher than the above range, and you, moreover, do not remember that you entered into an agreement with the management company for some kind of extra service, you should first find out the origin of the tariff, and then pay.

It should be noted that the Housing Code allows residents of the house to determine the amount of payment for the maintenance, operation and repair of their home, but this tariff must be determined at a general meeting of residents, and then an appropriate agreement must be signed with the management company. And then its size can be any, even 400 rubles. for 1 sq. m. By the way, such tariffs are no longer uncommon in Moscow. In any case, this payment item is quite transparent and practically does not allow for manipulation.

Water supply

The second group of payments requires more attention, since it constitutes the main part of the payment system and provides more opportunities for abuse of the gullibility of citizens on the part of management companies and DEZs, who may have their own little tricks in this regard and even innovative solutions.

Your recognition of the correct execution of the document and its payment is your acceptance of all the obligations specified there. In any case, you have a choice: accept or dispute, pay or not pay. The advice may seem strange, but if something confuses you about the payment, don’t pay!

Water supply, both hot and cold, can be metered using home metering devices (DPU) or using apartment metering devices (KPU). Tariffs for water and sewerage are regulated by the state and set by regional authorities. In Moscow there are only one, but in Khimki or Dolgoprudny there are others. From January 1, 2014 In Moscow, the following tariffs apply for calculating the KPU: for hot water - 125.69 rubles. for 1 cubic meter, for cold - 28.40 rubles. for 1 cubic meter, drainage costs 25.15 rubles. for 1 cubic meter.

It would seem much simpler, but sometimes the obvious becomes incredible. You receive a payment slip, and the amount you calculated for payment, for example, for water, may turn out to be much higher than you thought. The EIRC will explain this to you by saying that the calculation also takes into account the volume of water consumed for general household needs. Unfortunately, this is permitted by law; Residents pay for resource consumption for general house needs. But before you pay, try to assess whether the general household water consumption is beyond reasonable limits. As a rule, this volume is poorly controlled. And if you feel that it is excessive, demand clarification from your management company and recalculation. But, I repeat, this must be done before you make the payment.

Replacing meters

The UK or DEZ takes the readings of your meters (KPU). Installed meters must undergo verification, otherwise their testimony will not be taken into account. The hot water meter is calibrated once every four years, and the cold water meter - once every six years. Do not panic by reading the notices that sometimes appear on the entrance doors, stating that, in accordance with the resolution, such and such must urgently replace or reinstall the existing meters, otherwise you will be charged fines, and the payment amount will increase by 30%. As a rule, this means that another installation company enters the market, and thus, scaring the population, attracts the most naive clients. If your meter is operational and has been verified, no one can demand that you replace it.

Verification is a fairly simple and cheap procedure, but companies operating in this market usually tell horror stories about how long and multi-move combination awaits you. Allegedly, in order to verify the meter, you need to contact the DEZ, invite a specialist who will remove it and install a temporary meter. The removed meter must be taken to Rostest, where it will be tested for two to three weeks, then it must be taken away along with the conclusion, and then reinstalled, and then you are free for another four to six years. Lie. They are simply trying to convince you to install a new meter, the cost of which ranges from 2.5 to 5 thousand rubles.

There is a simple and simple technology - checking the water meter without removing it, which takes about 30 minutes and costs about 500 rubles. The service life of a normal meter is 20 years, so most likely such verification will give a positive conclusion for further operation.

What can I recommend here? Don’t be lazy to call installation companies and don’t fall for the first one you come across.

Individual heating points

Another of the fairly common tricks that management companies or DEZs know about, but are silent about, is the presence in apartment building individual heating point (IHP). Most new buildings or houses that have undergone major renovations within the last seven to ten years most likely have ITP. If there is an ITP, not hot water, but cold water enters the house, and it is heated on site due to heating. And the resident paid twice - for heating and for hot water supply, which he does not have to pay for, since the water enters the house is cold. Don’t hesitate to ask uncomfortable questions to your management company, and if you’re right, don’t hesitate to refuse to pay for those resources that you shouldn’t pay for.

If your apartment does not have meters, then the amount of payment for water supply will be calculated based on the number of residents registered in the apartment, consumption standards and tariff. Therefore, always pay attention to the line “number of residents”.

Additional expenses

And the last group of payments for Muscovites is additional expenses. The main thing to understand here is that an additional service cannot be imposed on the consumer. The composition and cost of additional services offered by the management company are regulated by the contract with it. Some things in secondary market apartments remain from the past, for example, a radio point. Yes, 50-60 rubles a month is not a lot of money, but if you don’t need it, refuse it. Just two or three years ago this was very troublesome, but now it is enough to submit an application to the MFC (Multifunctional Center for the Provision of Public Services), pay a small fee, and next month this line will disappear from the payment order.

Adviсe

Do not pay, but write applications, contact the management organization, EIRC, MFC personally for clarification. This path is almost the only real tool for asserting one’s rights. It’s one thing when you simply don’t pay, it’s another when you don’t pay with reason, because certain charges, in your opinion, are incorrect, and certain services were not provided to you. In this case, you are not doing anything reprehensible, because you are in the field of conflict resolution. If you are consistent, persistent, confident and demonstrative that you are right, then management and operating organizations will most likely agree to a settlement and prefer pre-trial settlement. But as soon as you pay, they will no longer listen to you. So if you have questions and doubts, get rid of them and only then pay.

General Director of Clever Estate Management Company Sergei Krekov specially for RBC Real Estate

There are many ways to deceive the population:
Management organizations collect additional payments for routine repairs, although these services are already included in monthly payments on receipts. If your home has a heat meter installed at the entrance to your home, payment is made according to the meter readings. In this case, the payment for heating the apartment is reduced by half. This information is hidden from residents. They are billed on a receipt based on the cost per square meter. meter, utility companies pay the organization supplying hot water - according to the meter, and pocket the difference for themselves. Officials from homeowners' associations and management companies provide cash receipts for the purchase of fuels and lubricants and stationery for huge amounts, several times more than necessary. If the elevator and garbage chute are not yet turned on, under the pretext of incomplete occupancy of the rented house, and you pay for both the elevator and the garbage chute for services, it is clear: into whose pocket the money goes in this case. In order to force residents to install water meters, utility companies set increased water consumption rates for houses that do not have water meters installed. At the same time, they themselves are calculated according to the “average tariff”, which is 3-5 times lower. There is fraud in paying for electricity. Utility workers send a recalculation every 2-3 months, for which, as a rule, you still have to pay, despite the fact that you pay monthly for electricity, according to the meter readings. Very often there are arithmetic “errors”, which are always made in favor of public utilities. It is unlawful to collect payment for an elevator from residents of the 1st floor. Sometimes utility companies include service charges in the receipt. TV antenna, which has nothing to do with them.

To prevent theft of your Money:
You need to require the management company or HOA to provide payment invoices to resource supply organizations. From the total bill you will calculate: how much you must pay.
Demand responsibility from the audit commission when checking the expenditure of funds by the housing and communal services administration: in case of overspending, send the case materials to law enforcement agencies. You are not required to hand over any additional funds: only those approved at the general meeting. You have the right to file an application with law enforcement agencies if public utilities are demanding payment for a non-working elevator or garbage chute.
If you find a receipt for payment for housing and communal services in your mailbox, first check the account number and if it does not match your account, then instead of paying this receipt you should contact the police. Annually growing tariffs for housing and communal services allowed scammers under the guise of utility payments receive transfers from the population using these receipts to their bank accounts.
If you overpay for electricity, you must send a written application for verification and recalculation. A copy of the application must be kept. If the application is not considered within 20 days, you must contact the city administration and send a copy to the ZPP department. If the complaint is not considered, you must contact a lawyer of the ZPP company to file an application to the court. In the best case, payment for excess electricity will be returned, the cost of a lawyer will be compensated, and compensation for moral damage will be received.
Chairman of the HOA you need to choose a person living in your house who is the owner of the property. Even if more than 50% of the apartments belong to the city, the administration does not have the right to appoint a person who is not the owner of the property as chairman.
Prices for housing and communal services in our country, regardless of their quality, the rate of inflation in the country and economic development: increase annually. This attitude towards the people has no analogues in the world. No country in the world shifts the problems of the state onto the people. In Russia there is no competition in the housing and communal services sector, hence the unjustified increase in payments.
For comparison: 40% of our country’s population spends up to 50% of their income on utilities, according to VTsIOM. In the USA, a family pays 5-6% for the same services. In Europe, prices are approximately the same - from 4 to 7%.
Experts made the following conclusion: if corruption is removed in the housing and communal services sector, the amount of payments will be halved.
The "communal mafia" is extremely tenacious. Thus, in Moscow, the prosecutor's office convicted housing and communal services workers of inflating tariffs, as a result of which residents of one district overpaid 1 billion rubles in six months. The problems of overpayment in the housing and communal services sector concern everyone. Therefore, the state needs to make the necessary efforts to disperse scammers from the housing and communal services sector. In turn, each of us needs to ask questions more often and demand a report from the HOA and management company on the distribution of funds received for paying for services. Clarify: why in this or that case they withdraw money from you that you should not pay. The entire group of residents should contact the prosecutor's office, demanding an investigation into why you pay the same amount for heating for 30 and 31 days. And with an increase in the average annual temperature by 2 - 3 degrees of external air temperature - why is there not a reduction in payments by the required 15 percent? There will be no indifferent people - and then something will begin to change! If everyone tells the head of the HOA - why, and also writes to him - why, and then the same question to the prosecutor's office - why? And by the whole society, with a large number of signatures..., and many times....Only then will your life change - start with yourself!

Oksana Gribova

How not to overpay for utilities

Introduction

The topic of housing and communal services has been exciting the minds of Russians for several years now. Perhaps even more than one decade. Russians have accumulated many questions on the topic: why do we pay such exorbitant sums, and where do management companies use our money? Moreover, some innovations constantly appear in Russian legislation that no one bothers to explain to people. Here are just a few reasons to talk about housing and communal services.

It’s worth visiting the payment center at least once to make sure that the “wars” between residents and representatives of management companies regarding bills for housing and communal services do not stop. The housing and communal services reform has been carried out by our government for several years now, but its results are still not visible. As a result, Russians are forced to invent “their own” ways to reduce the cost of “utilities” - from installing meters, receiving benefits, subsidies, and even completely avoiding paying with the appropriate grounds being presented in the form of a lawsuit.

What is housing and communal services?

The list of housing and communal services (HCS) includes: heating, water supply, sewerage, hot water supply (water heating), electricity, gas, as well as fees for garbage removal and entrance repairs.

Payments for housing and communal services are required to be paid by both owners of housing and tenants occupied under a social tenancy agreement or a lease agreement for residential premises of the state or municipal housing stock.

According to the authorities, from 2012 water, heat, gas and electricity meters should be installed in all apartments, legal entities It was ordered to acquire devices back in 2011. The goal, it would seem, is obvious - to reduce utility costs. However, most experts consider this measure to be extremely ineffective given the multiple overpayments for housing and communal services. At first glance, it seems that the authorities are doing a good deed by obliging everyone to purchase energy metering and monitoring devices. But the facts speak for themselves - in the current conditions of our country, this system most likely will not work.

The main reason is the global deterioration of the entire housing and communal services. According to the Ministry of Regional Development of Russia from January 2013, physical wear and tear, for example, of boiler houses reaches 55%, electrical networks - 58%, sewerage - 56%. About 30% of the fixed assets of housing and communal services have fully served their standard terms. Simply put, no metering devices can save leaking pipes and the rest of the life support systems of houses working with all their might.

Another reason is the growth of utility bills, which is almost 50% faster than the inflation rate. According to Rosstat, in just seven months of 2012, housing and communal services in Russia increased in price by more than 18%.

Any tricks to “help residents reduce costs for housing and communal services” result in overpayments - this is tariffing or calculating a certain coefficient for consumed heat and water. Typically, receipts indicate a base amount, which is then multiplied by a certain number. This very “nth number”, or coefficient, should be taken into account only during sharp fluctuations in air temperature, but in fact it is always calculated, even in summer. Moreover, of course, exclusively in the direction of increasing the supposedly consumed water or heat. The “surplus” is obtained due to the fact that management companies collect heat from citizens according to the standard, and pay heaters according to metering devices. Money is not returned to the population, although the law requires this.

The last trick can be effectively combated with the help of the very devices that the federal government intends to introduce. According to the directors of management companies in the capital, heat meters can save up to 40% of our money.

Counters are a “workaround” for a problem that does not address the root cause. It's all about the tariffs, which were calculated back in the post-war years and, accordingly, were aimed at very frosty and long winters, which have become rare today.

According to experts, the main problem for the federal government was reducing water, gas and energy costs, not consumer costs. There is also a gap in the relationship between housing and communal services providers and their consumers. Today, the monopolist enters into a contract for the supply of services with HOA board, housing cooperative or management company. If residents have arrears in paying for services, claims are brought not against them, but to the board or management company. However, they do not have real tools for debt collection. Homeowners also cannot present their claims to the quality of work of monopolists, since they legally have no obligations to residents at all.

It’s unlikely that even such useful and necessary devices will be able to plug the “hole” and, even more so, force public utilities to do something to the detriment of their interests. In Europe, this problem is solved very simply, like three decades ago - there is no monopoly on anything. Residents of the same building can choose for themselves who and how will deliver water and heat to their apartment, and choose their own individual tariff.

It is also obvious that installing meters will not lead to automatic savings in all houses, even within, for example, Moscow. The vast majority of residential buildings in the capital are the so-called “old foundation”, where communications and walls do not retain heat. Therefore, “smart” heat meters in houses with large losses of water and electricity due to their wear and tear will show even higher consumption. And there will be no savings. In order for residents to pay less, city authorities must first repair the house and all its communications, and at their own expense.

There is also a very “strange” problem: when the pressure and water flow decrease sewer pipes last 50% less than today. Thus, replacing pipes every 3-5 years, paid for by the residents themselves, will “eat up” much more than the residents will save with the help of meters.

And one last thing. Even if the residents of one apartment installed a heat meter in their home and saved money, this does not mean that they will pay less than before. The fact is that the heat losses incurred by the house as a whole will be distributed among all residents. To ensure that, even in an ordinary house, all residents immediately install metering and control devices, according to housing and communal services specialists, can be safely called “an absolute utopia.”

According to research by VTsIOM, more than 80% of citizens of large Russian cities, primarily Moscow and St. Petersburg, believe that they have been overpaying for utilities for decades, but do not know how legal and justified these payments are.

11.04.2018
Residents periodically contact MosObleIRC with questions about what they consider to be unreasonable debts for housing and communal services. Thus, recently a question was asked from the director of the MP “Management Company of the City of Zvenigorod” that column 11 of the Unified Payment Document, which reflects the accrued fees for all services, is not the total amount of payments for each service, taking into account the volume of services, tariffs, debts and overpayment

Why might it happen that the “Total” column is not a simple arithmetic addition of the amounts for each service provided?

The single payment document that Zvenigorod residents receive monthly is a document that brings together several separate invoices for services from various organizations - suppliers of electricity, heat, water, etc. Charges are calculated for each service separately, for each supplier.

If there is an overpayment for any service, the final amount payable for this service in the EPD will be set to “0”. Otherwise, if the amount of the overpayment were distributed among all suppliers, it would reduce the total amount payable and ultimately lead to a shortfall in funds received by other service providers.

Column 7 “Debt/Overpayment (-) at the beginning of the period” shows the status of payment for each service. The overpayment amount is indicated by a “-” sign.

What does this look like in an example? Let’s say you overpaid for the “cold water supply” service by 500 rubles; this month you have been charged 250 rubles for this service. Taking into account overpayments and charges, this month you will pay 0 rubles for cold water supply. Next month, the cost of this service will be reduced by the amount of the overpayment, and so on until the moment when the overpayment becomes zero.

We remind you that according to the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated March 28, 2012 No. 253, if the received payment amount is less than the accrued amount, it is distributed proportionally among all types of services. This rule is mandatory.

By paying a smaller amount and arbitrarily deleting some service from the payment document, the subscriber believes that he is not paying for it. However, the payment system does not “see” which service is crossed out and distributes the money in proportion to all services. The received payment is processed automatically; the programs deal with the received amount and cannot determine which set of services the subscriber paid for and which ones he refused. The only exception is the fee for voluntary insurance, in connection with which two amounts are included in the ENP: taking into account and excluding the insurance fee. As a result, by paying an arbitrary amount on a receipt that is less than the accrued amount, the subscriber only creates a debt for all housing and communal services.