Chairman of Committee on Construction,
Urban Development, Housing
and Regional Policy
V. Rybak
Dear Volodymyr Vasyliovych!
Dear people deputies!
CN OPORA is concerned about the new draft law № 8391 "On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine" On Housing Services ", that was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
We must admit that this bill creates a series of corruption schemes, restricts the rights of consumers of utility services and eliminates the house owners the right to dispose of their property, destroying the competitive environment in the residential services.
- The first concern is that after adoption of the bill the management through involved service provider will be the only possible form of house administration. Public experts see the lobbying of the management companies, thus trying to capture the market of housing without involvement of the right people, united in condominiums (p.6 Article 23).
- Secondly, the deputies that were the authors of the project offer actually deprive the owners of the responsibility for the provision of municipal services in the building. There is no provided supposed responsibility for management services for the quality of municipal services bill(Clause 8 of Article 25) .
- The third rule, which causes a lot of conflicts and abuses is that the bill allows to adopt the decision of just 33% of owners’ votes. Moreover, even "absentee voting" is allowed, which opened ample opportunities for abuse when deciding on the choice of a service provider of building management and other important decisions about the house. Moreover, the bill provides for the adoption of the owners of different residential and non-residential buildings common solutions "in the manner approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine". This gives the possibility to make decisions upon a house even without the participation of owners of apartments in this building through manipulation of the quorum, the "common" "general meeting" (parts 6-13, Article 23) .
- The Bill also proposed to pay for communal utilities in proportion of relative or non-residential premises that are in their property, to the total area of ??residential and non-residential premises of the house. "Thus, if the project is accepted, payment for utilities based on exposures of the metering will be meaningless. In addition, the rate of paying for services from a centralized supply of hot water or electricity on the basis of area accommodations is contrary to common sense (part16, Article 23) .
- After the adoption of the bill there is a risk that consumers will be forced to pay a separate management services, they essentially already paid for within the home keeping paying. The defined duties of building management official largely coincide with responsibilities that under the current law belong to the executor of the maintenance services of buildings, structures and adjacent areas. (Article 25).
- The bill also restricts competition in the market for building management. It creates a privileged environment for enterprises of communal ownership, for it states that "... the local government … on a competitive basis defines a service provider of building management," but "the competition is not necessary in determining by the local authorities as a service provider of building management the entity owned by the respective territorial communities "(paragraph 2 of Article 5).
- It entitles the central executive authority on housing authority to "the formation of the principles of conformity assessment of the professionals in the provision of services of building management." However, neither current law nor any applicable legislation or bill does not contain requirements for conformity of assessment of the professionals in the provision of building management services. In this connection, it remains unclear, how the proposed rule will be practically applied (paragraph 7 of Article 24). OPORA declares the inadmissibility of the adoption of this bill.
Sincerely,
Tetyana Boyko,
manager of house utility programs of
CN OPORA