Buyers of apartments may be required to pay a number of debts inherited from previous owners
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If the son is not responsible for his father, then the buyer of the apartment is very much responsible for the previous owner. This is exactly how one can interpret the truly revolutionary initiative of Russian deputies. The idea is that the homeowner, who has not paid for the services of the management company for months, can “don’t care and forget” after selling the apartment.
For the first time, the housing and communal services and urban environment association came up with a proposal to pin the debts of the previous owner on the home buyer in April 2021. The Ministry of Construction promised to “study the topic.” And less than three years have passed since the document reached the corridors of the State Duma.
Deputies propose to allocate a separate line for the fee for the so-called “routine repairs of common property in an apartment building” (the management company receives money for this). And if the previous owner owes on this item and then sells the apartment, the new owner will have to pay the debt.
First, a few words about what the current law provides. When purchasing an apartment, the owner assumes the only responsibility – to pay off the debt (if any) for major repairs: “Contributions for major repairs are tied to the property, not to the person. Therefore, if there is such a debt, by law the new owner must pay it,” explains the founder of Best-Novostroy, Irina Dobrokhotova.
“At one time, the state took care of the capital repair fund, but did not think about the management companies servicing the housing stock, and this is unfair,” says Valery Mamchur, chairman of the public organization Housing and Communal Services Control in the Moscow region. — It turns out that management companies and homeowners associations need to run around looking for the previous owner.
Valery Mamchur says that in his memory, the largest debt for a communal apartment was 700 thousand rubles. And at the same time, the offender was able to avoid punishment. The statute of limitations by law is three years. During this time, no collection was carried out from the owner of the property, and the debt was “forgiven” to him.
Show business stars often take advantage of this indulgence – reports about millions of debts for utilities among representatives of the elite, no, no, and even leaked in the press. “Sometimes management companies turn a blind eye to the dishonesty of famous residents and prefer not to get involved with them,” says Valery Mamchur. — Stars who have consumer extremism in their blood hire good lawyers who do not harm either themselves or their money. After three years, the debt is legally written off.”
– Valery, let’s clarify. According to the current law, the buyer of an apartment does not care whether the seller has debts to the management company or not?
— Ideally, of course, it is better that the apartment has no debts to the management company – this must be indicated by the realtor or notary in the purchase and sale agreement. However, even if the property has debts, this does not prevent the conclusion of the transaction, since the seller of the property does not have to receive an official certificate of debt or its absence. Unfortunately, there is no legal provision that obliges the seller to notify the buyer about the debts. But, I repeat, the buyer has no obligation to pay utility debt.
But if the bill is adopted, the situation will change: the new owner will be obliged to take on not only the debt for major repairs, but also to pay for the maintenance of the house and its current repairs, which he “inherited” from the previous owner. This is beneficial for management companies, they will get their money, but you won’t envy the home buyer. Moreover, this is unfair, lawyer Evgeny Antonov is sure:
— Civil legislation places the burden of maintaining the property on its owner, and the person to whom they are provided is obliged to pay for utilities. Thus, if during the period of the debt the seller was the owner, and he and his family members received utilities, then it is illegal and unfair to shift someone else’s debt to the buyer.
Risks must be mitigated at the stage of drafting the bill, comments Sergei Chuzhakov, deputy head of the legal department of the federal company Etazhi:
— It is necessary to ensure transparency of data on the debt of the former owner, and this debt should be recorded at the stage of the transaction and not be subject to revision. It would be logical to include information about the debt in the Unified State Register of Real Estate. One of the disadvantages of the bill is that, in fact, the new owner will pay for services that he did not personally consume, so it would be logical to obtain his consent to pay this debt after purchasing the property. Plus, it is necessary to provide some kind of grace period for new owners, during which harsh sanctions will not be applied to them.
Irina Dobrokhotova names another unpleasant consequence for buyers: “If the previous owner accumulated debts, the management company may go to court, where the apartment may be seized, which means the invalidity of all actions with it. The law itself can become an unpleasant surprise for the buyer of secondary real estate if it does not protect his rights, but only imposes obligations to repay other people’s debts.”
The law, if adopted, will come into force on October 1, 2025.
Newspaper headline:
The debt is red by the meter
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