The Supreme Court clarified who will pay for damage from major repairs

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Residents of an apartment building own not only their apartments, but also common property, which includes the adjacent territory, common areas, and utility and communication networks. In order for the courtyards and roads near the house to become the property of the residents, their official transfer is necessary.

If such a procedure has not been carried out, the territory will be considered municipal property. Common or municipal property also requires regular maintenance, periodic repairs, and landscaping work, just like the area of apartments.

1 Government program
2 Where to contact
3 Road repair
4 Quality requirements
5 housing cooperatives
6 Types
7 Statement
8 If the management company is inactive

Maintenance of apartment buildings is carried out by Management Companies, but it is not always known who is engaged in the repair of adjacent areas and their landscaping? Should residents do this at their own expense or is this the responsibility of the management company or municipal authorities? Repairing courtyard areas of apartment buildings is an important condition for creating a comfortable and safe area around the house.

Government program

ATTENTION! In the period from 2020 to 2022, there is a program providing for the improvement of local areas.

It will improve living conditions in an apartment building, change the appearance of courtyards for the better, and create a large number of children's and sports grounds inside the courtyard.

The government is allocating a huge amount of money, 20 billion, to implement the program. They are divided between regions, and at the local level management will plan their further targeted use.

In this way, the government helps residents of apartment buildings quickly and at a modern level to landscape their yards, but then the owners of the apartments will have to pay for their maintenance. If residents of apartment buildings have already accepted courtyards into common property, they have already transferred funds under the column “house maintenance.”

The allocation of funds under the program also implies the development of regional programs; residents can already participate in this process.

When developing the municipal program, those courtyards that are most in need of repair and improvement of the local area will be identified. From 2022, at the end of the program, those areas that will be renovated will become the property of the residents of the apartment complex.

They will have to pay for their maintenance and repairs. If further repairs are needed, at the general meeting of the owners of the apartment building, a list of works that are planned to be carried out in the area near the house is approved; the apartment owners can make their own additions and express their opinions.

A representative from the house will monitor those who are repairing the yard and the quality of all work. Residents decide how much personal money they are willing to spend on improvements.

Who should repair sidewalks in the yard?

We tell you how to restore asphalt in your local area and whether it is possible to get free repairs from the municipality.

“In our yard there’s just a terrible sidewalk: continuous holes that when it rains are filled with ankle-deep water. It is impossible to pass, especially with children. The road, by the way, is in the yard and even worse. How can this situation be corrected? And who should be in charge of repairing sidewalks?

According to Article 36 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation, the courtyard area belongs to the common property of the residents of an apartment building (MKD). According to Article 39 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation, owners of premises in apartment buildings bear the burden of expenses for the maintenance of common property. In other words, the improvement of the local area, including bringing the sidewalks and roads in the yard to proper condition, lies on the shoulders of the residents themselves.

However, this only applies to those cases when the land plot on which the house stands has been formed and belongs to the owners of the apartments. According to the chairman of the council of the house on the street. Lenina, 20 Valeria Semenishcheva, the territory may legally belong to different houses.

– Recently a question arose regarding a house on Lepse Street. It turned out that legally there are two different houses in the same building and, accordingly, the adjacent territory belongs to both of them. That is, it turns out that the houses are different, but they must make a decision at the vote on the same territory. Therefore, you first need to understand whether the territory really belongs to your home. To do this, you need to take a copy of the land plot from the Department of Urban Planning and Architecture,” comments Valery.

If the land plot on which the house is located is not formed, then it belongs to the area of responsibility of the municipality. Accordingly, you have every right to demand from the city that the territory be brought into proper condition.

- This, of course, is difficult and may take more than one year, but still such a possibility exists, and it cannot be excluded. Although, I think it’s easier to form a site and improve the territory with the help of residents,” says Valery Semenishchev.

Once you have accurately verified the ownership of the local area, the next step is to select a source of financing.

Firstly, money for sidewalk repairs can be taken from the article “Maintenance and routine repairs of common property” or additionally collected from residents if the funds “at home” are not enough.

In both cases, a general meeting of owners must first be held and a decision must be made by two-thirds of the votes.
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Another option is suitable for those owners who decide to rent out space on the facade of the house for outdoor advertising. According to Dmitry Limonov, the manager of the house at 129 Karl Marx, 129, payment for advertising can be obtained for certain works of the residents’ choice, including the repair of sidewalks and courtyard driveways.

In addition, to attract additional sources of financing, residents can rent out the basement or stroller room in the house. According to Valery Semenishchev, another fairly common method is leasing part of the land plot for kiosks, for example, with water.

— Someone manages to rent out the roof of a house for advertising or to cellular operators to place their equipment. Relatively recently, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation sided with the owners of apartment building premises and issued a ruling, which all Russian courts must apply, that providers can take money for renting common property (walls, landings, attics, etc.) - Valery notes. — You can also charge rent from transit cables (the same providers) or transit pipelines.

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According to him, in such cases it is almost impossible to achieve a result without a trial, but the law is on the side of the owners of apartment buildings and the likelihood of winning a legal dispute is very high.

Another way to resurface your yard's asphalt is to get a grant.

“You can get co-financing under existing programs: “Project to Support Local Initiatives” (LPMI), “Formation of a Comfortable Urban Environment,” as well as through competitions with small grants, for example, “Vyatka Sobornost,” says Valery Semenishchev.

In 2020, within the framework of the federal program “Formation of a comfortable urban environment,” the Kirov administration developed the subprogram “Formation of a modern urban environment of the Municipal Municipality “City of Kirov,” which is designed for 2020 - 2022. The essence of the project is the improvement of courtyard areas - according to the minimum and additional list of works. The minimum list includes the repair of courtyard driveways, sidewalks, lighting of the area, installation of benches and trash cans, while co-financing from residents should not exceed 15%. Additional work includes the installation of children's and sports grounds, parking lots, landscaping and other landscaping. For such work, co-financing by the owners can reach 50%, but should not exceed this threshold. However, the more residents are willing to contribute, the higher their chances of passing the competitive selection will be.

In 2020, under the “Formation of a Comfortable Urban Environment” program, 46 courtyards are to be renovated in Kirov. If you submitted an application, but did not pass the competitive selection, do not rush to collect money from your neighbors: you can apply for the competitive selection next year.

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In order for your application to be accepted, you need to hold a general meeting of owners, inspect the courtyard area and draw up an appropriate act, develop a design project, draw up an estimate and record all the information at the general meeting of residents. You can read more about all the necessary conditions on the official website of the Kirov administration in the “City Projects” section. It is worth separately noting that applications for participation in the competition are accepted from management organizations, homeowners' associations and housing cooperatives in the territorial departments of their districts.

The “Project to Support Local Initiatives” has been implemented in our region since 2010. At a meeting of the government of the Kirov region, it was decided to continue its implementation in 2020. The subsidy for PPMI can reach 1 million rubles, and the share of co-financing of the population starts from 5%. Moreover, the more residents are willing to contribute their own funds, the greater the chances of successfully passing the competitive selection.

To participate in the PPMI competition, you will also need to hold a general meeting of owners, decide on the need to repair the asphalt pavement, draw up an estimate and minutes of the meeting and submit an application - from the TOS or HOA.

However, in the case of grants, situations may arise where, even taking into account co-financing from the municipality, the cost of the work may turn out to be higher than when searching for a contractor independently.

“For example, when we decided to install CCTV cameras, our house participated in the PPMI, which is more transparent than the “Formation of a Comfortable Urban Environment” competition. According to our calculations, the cost of all the work was about 200 thousand rubles, and the municipality in some completely strange way counted half a million. As a result of the tender, the amount fell below 200 thousand, but this half a million came from somewhere,” Valery Semenishchev shares his experience.

Another option for receiving financial assistance for yard repairs is a deputy from your constituency.

Each of them receives 700 thousand rubles a year from the municipal budget to carry out the orders of voters. And from 2020 this amount will already be 1 million rubles.

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In addition, there is a precedent when the owners of apartment buildings managed to get sidewalks repaired at the expense of the municipality, without raising their own funds. True, this was not in Kirov. In 2012, in the city of Ukhta in the Komi Republic, a local resident turned to a civil activist who was dealing with the problem of “dead” roads. Referring to Art. 1 and Art. 12 of the Federal Law “On Road Safety”, clause 19, part 1, art. 12 of the Law “On Police”, paragraph 11 of the Regulations “On the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation” and the fact that pedestrians are full participants in the road traffic, they wrote a statement to the Ukhta State Traffic Safety Inspectorate with a request to initiate a case of an administrative offense in relation to the Criminal Code and issue an order to eliminate all identified deficiencies.

Employees of the State Traffic Inspectorate conducted an inspection and issued an order to the Criminal Code to carry out road repairs. However, the managers referred to Art. 44 of the Housing Code, according to which the governing body of the apartment building is the general meeting of owners, therefore the residents themselves should be responsible for asphalting.

After this, a statement was written to the prosecutor’s office regarding the inaction of the Criminal Code, with a response from the traffic police attached. However, they also referred to the same Article 44 of the LC. After this, the application was submitted to the Republican Prosecutor's Office with the response of the Ukhta prosecutor and a request to take prosecutorial response measures. After this, the asphalt in the yard was completely restored. You can read more about this case here.

Despite the fact that all the events described took place 6 years ago, all the laws that the activist referred to are still in effect. As Valery Semenishchev notes, you can try to get the yard repaired this way, but in the case of the local area the result is unpredictable.

“By and large, if the city repairs the road in the local area, the prosecutor’s office may accuse the administration of misuse of funds,” comments Valery. — In addition, in housing legal relations, the Housing Code is the second most important document after the Constitution, therefore it stands above federal laws. Repairing asphalt in the yard is hardly within the scope of the Constitution, unless there are kilometer-long potholes and they really pose a serious threat to the life and health of residents.

Expert of the Public Chamber of the Kirov Region and head of the ANO Housing and Communal Services Expert Andrey Vorobyov notes that using this scheme you can try to achieve results only if the boundaries of the land plot are not defined and the courtyard area is owned by the municipality.

Once again briefly about the main thing

1. First of all, you need to make sure that the land plot on which your house is located is formed and belongs to the common property of the residents. To do this, you need to get a copy from the Department of Urban Planning and Architecture.

2. If the site is not formed, then it belongs to the area of responsibility of the municipality and you can demand that the administration restore the asphalt surface.

3. If the site is owned by the residents, then the restoration of sidewalks and courtyard driveways is the responsibility of the residents themselves.

4. Funds for yard repairs can be taken from the article “Maintenance and current repairs of common property” or additionally collected from the owners.

5. If you plan to place outdoor advertising on the facade of the house, you can ask for the road in the yard to be repaired as payment.

6. Another option is to receive a grant through participation in grant competitions: PPMI, “Formation of a comfortable urban environment”, etc.

7. A deputy from your constituency can assist in repairing the yard.

8. You can try to get the road in your yard repaired by contacting the traffic police. True, for this you will have to run through various authorities, right up to the Prosecutor General’s Office.

If you have questions that you can't find the answer to, ask us and we will try to answer them.

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Where to contact

If residents of an apartment building want to become a participant in the government program, they must first create an initiative group for this:

This group discusses the list of works, assesses the condition of the yard, and draws up its diagram.
Then a general meeting of apartment owners is held, at which all issues regarding repairs are discussed and a protocol is drawn up.
After the OS, the initiative group submits an application to participate in the program. You can find a sample for such an application on housing and communal services resources, on the municipality website

The yard drawing should include the various structures present, as well as an indication of those that would be desired as a result of the landscaping work. But it is important that all planned work meets the parameters and capabilities of the municipal program.

The application submitted to the municipality will be considered by a special commission, then the residents of the house (or it may be several houses with a territory uniting them) are presented with design projects to choose from. Contractors are being selected for landscaping work, and the initiative group will be able to control them.

According to the program, it is possible not only to pave the local area, but also to build sports and children's playgrounds on it, carry out lighting, landscaping, and other important processes.

After completing the work according to the program, as required by law, maintenance of courtyards and access roads to an apartment building can be carried out both by the residents themselves and by the management company or HOA that maintains the building itself.

Road repair

Almost every year, at the end of the winter period, the pressing issue of repairing the access road to a residential building arises. Snow and ice have a destructive effect on the road surface, especially if it was laid poorly, not in accordance with GOST; by spring, huge holes are exposed, due to which cars are damaged and sometimes people are injured.

Often after winter it is necessary to repair sidewalks. Who is responsible for the roads in the yards and at whose expense should they be repaired?

To repair roads and sidewalks in your yard, you can contact the municipal authorities, but they often act slowly, sometimes even ignoring the request. What should residents do in this case? First you need to find out exactly who should repair roads in the courtyards of certain houses:

If the road is a common property, its Management Company is responsible for repairs. She must know the boundaries of the local area of the apartment building being serviced; this must be indicated in the technical passport of the house.
If the territory is urban and is not part of the common property of residents, the local city government is responsible for its repair and maintenance.

The responsibility of the municipality to monitor city property, including roads, is determined by Federal Law No. 196 (Article 12, paragraph 2).

In order for the municipality to begin repairing its property in the courtyard of the house, that is, the road, you need to draw up an application and submit it to the local authorities. Such a collective appeal is drawn up in two copies, its receipt must be registered. Municipal authorities must consider the application within a month.

ATTENTION! If local authorities refuse to repair their access roads leading to residential buildings, residents have the right to go to court.

Actions in case of an accident due to poor road conditions

Below are detailed instructions for the actions of a citizen who is involved in an accident due to poor road conditions:

Call the traffic police. Do not touch or move the vehicle until the inspection arrives. It is necessary to find witnesses and write down their contact details with their residential address and passport details (witnesses can be passengers, including relatives);

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When drawing up a protocol by the inspector, it is necessary to double-check the presence of holes and their sizes, as well as the absence of fences and necessary signs. If this information is not included in the protocol, it is necessary to request that the necessary information be entered in the presence of witnesses. After filling out all the documentation, you must request a copy of the protocol.
It is necessary to record traffic violations using video and photographs, preferably indicating the date of recording and time.
When drawing up the act, you will need to attach available photo and video evidence.

Important to remember! The legislation of the Russian Federation normalizes the examination of the authenticity of photos and videos. Do not forget to record the testimony and data of witnesses in the act. The act must be signed by the victim and all declared witnesses.

In case of discomfort due to the health of the driver and passengers after the incident, it is necessary to contact the clinic to establish the fact of the current state of health in a documented form.
Traffic police inspectors must provide the victim with information about whose responsibility the road section is (the organization will be the defendant in the event of litigation). If the inspectorate refuses to provide data, it is possible to request it through the local prosecutor's office.
It makes sense to make an official written proposal to the organization responsible for compensating for the harm through a voluntary settlement (indicate time for reflection). The amount of damage in this case is calculated by a specialized appraisal company.
If there is no response to the proposal to voluntarily resolve the problem, it is necessary to write an application to the court attaching all available documents.

Important! Do not forget to record the violation of the road company, because After the traffic police informs the person responsible about the violation, the culprit can try to quickly “patch up” everything.

Housing cooperative

Members of the housing construction cooperative at the general meeting also jointly decide all issues related to the improvement of the house and its territory.

Residents must decide how much money they can allocate for road repairs and how it will be carried out - on their own or with the help of contractors.

If apartment owners in housing cooperatives themselves carry out repair work to improve access roads and sidewalks, they must comply with the requirements of Articles 153, 154,158 of the Housing Code.

When a house is serviced by a management company, she is obliged to carry out repair work in the local area, because the owners of the apartments transfer her a certain amount on monthly payments for improvement.

Kinds

Current and major repairs can be carried out in the local area:

The current one involves repair work aimed at eliminating damage and partially restoring the territory. It is usually performed once a year. Residents can decide for themselves (if the territory is in common property) what processes will be performed during routine repairs.
Partial restoration of sidewalks, access roads, and alleys can be carried out. Children's playgrounds and sports grounds are being restored, fences are being repaired, areas for garbage containers and the containers themselves are being restored.
Major repairs involve the complete replacement of the road surface and various elements of the local area. Access roads are being restored, fences are being replaced or properly restored, and new playgrounds and sports grounds can be built.

Maximum permissible violations of road integrity

Having understood the question of who is responsible for the roads in the city, we will now consider permissible violations of the quality and integrity of roadways in accordance with Russian GOST No. 50597 - 93:

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The maximum depth of subsidence, potholes and pits should not exceed 5 cm, the length of the violation should not be more than 15 cm, and the width should not be more than 60 cm. If the road surface does not comply with at least one standard, special services are required to post road signs. If there is damage in the dark or in conditions of insufficient visibility, road services are required to fence off the hole with a barrier, accompanied by warning signals.

In urban conditions, the period for repairing road damage is 5–10 days, depending on the size. Federal roads or highways must be repaired within no more than 5 days.

Statement

An application with a request to repair the local area, access roads and sidewalks in the yard is submitted to the management of the Management Company, which under the contract maintains the house. At least half of the apartment owners must sign such a statement.

It must be registered and provided with the number of incoming documents. One copy of such a petition is kept by the applicants:

The letter indicates the name of the management company, information about the manager to whom the application is sent, information about the applicant, and his address.
The reasons why repairs are required are indicated, and the technical condition of the yard, roads, and sidewalks is described.
A set of works is listed that, in the opinion of residents, need to be performed for the high-quality improvement of the local area and the creation of safe conditions for its use.
The application must be accompanied by an inspection and inspection report of the territory and an expert’s opinion.
At the end there must be signatures of residents, in an amount of at least 50%.

You can also submit an application on the State Services website. It also indicates the grounds for repair work, the desired timing, and information about the applicant. This portal has a Capital Repair Fund tab, where you can leave your application in the form provided.

If the management company is inactive

Residents of apartment buildings should not be indifferent to the territory of their residence. It can be landscaped and landscaped with high quality and at a modern level. When carrying out repair work, not only the surface of sidewalks and roads is restored, but also cozy recreation areas are created, garbage areas and parking spaces for residents of the house are repaired.

IMPORTANT! If the Management Company receives funds for the maintenance and improvement of the building, it must fulfill its obligations and carry out repairs in full and without delay.

When the management company does not want to respond to the demands of residents and finds constant reasons for postponing yard repairs, its clients can first complain to the head of this organization. The complaint should provide arguments for repairs and legal provisions regarding the responsibilities of the Management Company. The management of the management company also does not take any measures?

The next authority for complaints is the Housing Inspectorate. This body issues operating licenses to Management Companies and therefore has a strong instrument of influence on them. The last step is to go to court and file a claim against the management company and its management.

Where can a citizen turn if the requirements for road repairs are not met?

If a violation of technical regulations is detected regarding the condition of motor roads, any citizen can file a complaint with the Department for Repair and Maintenance of City Roads of the Department of Housing and Public Utilities and City Improvement.

Below is a list of example situations in which contacting management is possible:

If you want to find out the beginning and timing of repairs and reconstruction of certain sections of roads;
If a threat or emergency situation is detected at the road site;
If it is discovered that the roadway is in poor condition;
If it is discovered that work is being carried out by a road company not in accordance with the normatively established rules (the necessary road signs are missing, the next work is carried out in inappropriate weather conditions, and other situations);

If there are established facts of inadequate quality of work performed on reconstruction, repair or construction of roads;
If a fact of ownerlessness of the roadway is discovered (it is not in anyone’s ownership).

When contacting the department, an official response in writing on the established letterhead of the institution is given within 30 days (the contact information of the applicant must be provided).

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