Houses of bygone days – Business – Kommersant

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (SC) has been referred to the question of how long the company managing an apartment building has the right to require the developer to transfer technical documentation. The lower courts limited the period to three years, but the Criminal Code insists that such claims can be made indefinitely until the developer hands over all the documents. The final word remains with the Sun. Such disputes arise when the developer and the management company are not affiliated, which is now rare. There is no single practice on this issue, the opinions of lawyers are also different.

The Supreme Court will consider a dispute between the management company and the developer regarding the transfer of technical documentation for the constructed apartment building (MKD). In October 2017, Veles Managing Company LLC received the management of an apartment building in Novosibirsk, built by Soyuz Invest Specialized Developer LLC and put into operation a month before. Before that, the parties signed registers for the transfer of technical documentation, but the developer did not transfer all the required documents to the Criminal Code, including project documentation and executive drawings for the house.

In September 2021, Veles sent a claim to the developer demanding to transfer the missing documentation and then, without receiving a response, went to court.

Objecting to the claims, the developer said that he had already handed over some of the documents, and the Criminal Code missed the statute of limitations for filing such a claim.

The court agreed that the developer was obliged to transfer the disputed documentation and “allowed inaction, expressed in non-compliance with the named norms.” However, the court noted that some of the requested documents had already been transferred to the Criminal Code, another part was “requested unreasonably”, and for the rest, a three-year limitation period was missed, since the last act of acceptance and transfer of documentation was drawn up in December 2017, and the claim was filed only in November 2021 th. As a result, the Arbitration Court of the Novosibirsk Region rejected the claim of the Criminal Code, the appeal and cassation agreed with this decision.

The Criminal Code appealed these findings to the Supreme Court, believing that its demand “cannot be limited in time”, since it protects the interests of the owners of premises in the MKD, “whose rights were violated by the long-term failure to fulfill the developer’s obligation to transfer documents.”

“Illegal behavior of the developer” prevents the management company from maintaining the property of the house in proper condition, ensuring its “uninterrupted and trouble-free operation,” the company believes.

The dispute was referred to the Economic Board of the Armed Forces, the hearing is scheduled for March 21.

According to Nikita Filippov, head of the De Jure Law Office, the courts usually support the requirements for the developer to transfer documents “even if the disputed documentation is missing or lost.” If the documents can be restored by the UK itself, “the court can recover from the developer the losses and expenses incurred for their restoration,” adds Mr. Filippov.

Nurida Ibragimova, head of the quality control department of the legal service at Amulex.ru, says that there are many reasons for not transferring documents, among them: “an elementary loss of documentation, the presence of errors that they don’t want to correct, the negligent attitude of the developer’s employees, or simply unwillingness to transfer documents due to poor relations between organizations “.

At the same time, Tatyana Zimina, lawyer of the Yakovlev and Partners legal group, notes that disputes with the Criminal Code about documents “are quite rare, since usually the developer, after the construction of the MKD, brings his own (affiliated with him) managing organization there.” Such claims often arise “against former management companies that, when they leave, do not transfer the technical documentation necessary for servicing the house to the new management companies,” adds Nurida Ibragimova.

On the issue of limitation of actions, the practice is contradictory, Nikita Filippov points out: some courts apply a three-year period for claiming documents, others refer to the fact that the Criminal Code is filing a claim in order to “fulfill the public obligation to maintain the house,” and this cannot be limited by time frames.

Lawyers are also not unanimous on this issue. “Since the Criminal Code acts on behalf of the owners, the application of the limitation period is unlawful,” Nurida Ibragimova believes. A similar opinion is shared by Ms. Zimina, believing that the claim of the Criminal Code “can be qualified as a demand by the owners themselves to eliminate violations of their rights not related to deprivation of possession,” so the statute of limitations does not apply here. She considers the transfer of the case to the Supreme Court as a positive signal in the direction of “protecting the legitimate interests of the owners of premises in the MKD.”

Meanwhile, Nikita Fillipov draws attention to “the obvious omissions of the Criminal Code, which filed a lawsuit after almost four years.” As the Constitutional Court has repeatedly noted, Mr. Filippov recalls, “the statute of limitations is intended to discipline participants in civil relations,” and “the absence of reasonable time limits would lead to infringement of the rights of defendants and third parties, who could not always take into account in advance the need to collect and preserve significant for consideration of the case of information and facts.

Ekaterina Volkova, Anna Zanina