A law on a special procedure for paying for heating in Moscow has been signed

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law giving the capital’s authorities the right to switch to a system of payment for heating in residential buildings that is different from other regions. We are talking about government amendments that were introduced to the State Duma to “prevent the growth of social tension.” The law is designed to prevent a repetition of the conflict situations of 2022, when, after an unusually cold winter in recent years, citizens received bills demanding a significant additional payment for heating. The amendments give the authorities the opportunity to use a mechanism for a more uniform recalculation of heat consumption over the past three to five years, experts say.

Signed by the head of state law makes amendments to Art. 157 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation and Art. 4 of the federal law “On the status of the capital of the Russian Federation”. The city authorities are given the right to establish “the specifics of determining the amount of payment for utility services for heating.” The law does not say what these “features” are; they must be determined by a by-law of the Moscow government. In the document only indicatedthat “features” relate to the calculation of the “average monthly volume of thermal energy consumption” and serve the “purposes of equal payment” for the service.

Relevant bill was introduced by the government of the Russian Federation to the State Duma in April 2023 and adopted on November 2, 2023. The explanatory note to it stated that the amendments were prepared to “prevent a significant increase in fees” for housing and communal services associated “with annual climate fluctuations.”

Let us remind you that in 2022, Muscovites began to en masse become outraged due to an unexpected increase in heating fees. Thus, residents of a number of districts of the capital found in their payment bills for February 2022 a requirement for additional payment for heating in amounts of up to 12 thousand rubles.

The FAS took charge of the situation, and city authorities temporarily blocked the online system for paying receipts. As a result, the mayor’s office confirmed the validity of the surcharges, linking them with the increased load on heating systems due to the cold winter of 2021, but promised to “stretch” them in payments for a year, rather than issue a one-time invoice.

The White House reminded that, according to Russian Government Resolution No. 354, in Moscow there is an option of equal payment for heating services in residential buildings throughout the calendar year (another method is payment during the heating season).

“At the end of the year, the population should be issued a one-time adjustment payment,” officials reminded, emphasizing that “in the conditions of the extremely warm winter of 2020 and the cold winter of 2021” in Moscow, this additional payment was significant.

The explanatory note provided data that the average increase in heating payments in Moscow then amounted to 25%, “and for individual houses… exceeded 50%.” The amendments will help prevent “an increase in social tension,” the White House added. It is noteworthy that the law applies to “legal relations arising from January 1, 2022,” that is, it has retroactive effect. The document also obliges the mayor’s office to “establish a procedure for compensating lost revenues” to heat supply organizations.

Pavel Sklyanchuk, an expert at the “All-Russian Popular Front” site “Housing and Urban Environment”, reminds us of the current mechanism for adjusting heating bills based on the results of 12 months. “But in recent years there has been a tendency that recalculations have led to dissatisfaction among Muscovites. Therefore, the authorities decided to adjust the legislation,” he explains. Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Communal Services Svetlana Razvorotneva (ER) also says that the amounts of “additional charges” for heating services “can be significant,” and after the adoption of the law, the capital authorities will recalculate the volume of consumption “not for one year, but for three— five years”. “In fact, only the period during which the arithmetic average will be calculated changes,” adds Mr. Sklyanchuk, suggesting that we will be talking about the average volume of heat consumption over the last five years. Mrs. Razvorotneva makes it clear that the authorities will not be able to issue additional payments for heating at a time, but spread them out in bills for the whole year.

Alexander Voronov