Belgorod power engineers demanded that residents of shelled Shebekin pay for electricity

In this situation, the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, promised that rent for June-July 2023 would not be taken from residents of the city of Shebekino, whose housing was under shelling. He then informed citizens about this on his page on social networks.

“Accrual will be resumed from August 1, before that we plan to restore the thermal circuit, that is, the roof and windows,” the head of the region guaranteed.

It seems that in fact there is nothing to pay for: if no one uses public services, then where can the expenses come from?

However, recently the city management companies received bills from energy companies.

The largest energy company in the region asks the following organizations to pay debts for the period from June 1 to July 31, 2023: Management Company “…” issued an invoice for 626.3 thousand rubles, LLC “…” – 407.4 thousand rubles, management company ” …” – 53.2 thousand rubles, “…” – 218.9 thousand rubles. All these documents are in the editorial office.

The management company received the invoices, and according to the law, they send these charges in receipts for rent to end consumers. If there are debts, then someone must pay them. Voluntarily or by court. It’s logical.

“We are afraid that the already affected townspeople will have to fork out money,” commented Belgorod lawyers involved in helping Shebekin refugees.

They noted that they were dealing with a certain legal gap, misunderstanding and that this problem needed to be resolved as soon as possible.

Where did electricity come from in houses if no one lived there?

It turned out that everything was very simple: during this period, the communal light was used by workers who were doing repairs after the bombing.

The regulatory authorities confirmed that the accruals were made based on actual consumption.

It is clear that since there are expenses, someone must reimburse them. There are no official documents at the federal level that would spell out what to do in such cases. And the situation, frankly speaking, is unprecedented.

Surely there is a way out. Moreover, the gas workers and the water utility complied with Governor Gladkov’s request and did not credit the victims with a single ruble; only the energy sector demanded payment.

“For me now, any amount is unaffordable, I don’t know what to do,” one of Shebekin’s residents, Marina M., worries in a conversation with MK. And there are hundreds of people like her.

The Ministry of Housing and Communal Services of the Belgorod Region has officially confirmed that at the moment no enforcement measures have been taken to collect debts. But the debts remain. And with them, probably, penalties also grow?

The townspeople wrote about their situation in an official appeal to the President of the Russian Federation, the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation and to the supervisory authorities.

Having learned about the flaring scandal, Deputy Governor for Housing and Communal Services Sergei Dovgalyuk assured that due to the situation in Shebekin at the beginning of the summer, the operational headquarters ordered not to charge utility and housing payments for June-July 2023, when people were actually absent from the city. Well, the governor spoke about this earlier.

To resolve this issue, Dovgalyuk suggested that the management company turn to contractors, who turned on the light.

“Companies faced with debt claims can turn to contractors with a request to reimburse money spent on electricity,” he told Shebekin residents.

And if the contractors also don’t want to pay, how can we get money from them – only through the court? This is also a long and unpleasant process. Everyone knows that it is easiest to withdraw funds from the most defenseless, that is, from the end consumers.

It’s all somehow very sad.

“According to Art. 131 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation, in order to bring claims related to debts, a calculation of the debt and signed consumption acts are required. However, we have not yet seen any documents in this regard,” the lawyers add.

In any case, for now the final consumers are the Shebekin residents themselves. The apartments are theirs. And although they were promised that they would not pay, a stipulation had already been made that this would only affect those townspeople whose apartments were destroyed and remained uninhabitable, and not all evacuated Shebekin residents.

Residents really hope that the promises given to all of them will be fulfilled and that they will not have to pay a million for electricity.

We rely on the governor.