If you make an erroneous payment for housing and communal services, you should first try to return the money in a pre-trial order. But if it does not work out, collect the documents and go to court
Sometimes it happens that the homeowner, paying for housing and communal services (housing and communal services) on a receipt, did not check whether the payment document was intended for him or he got into the mailbox by accident. Another reason for the payment error may be a typo when entering the personal account number. As a result, the money is sent to another account, and your housing and communal services remain unpaid.
Together with the experts, we tell you what to do if a similar error occurred and the money was misused.
Experts in the article:
If you paid at a bank branch
If you paid at a bank branch, then there is a chance to promptly refund the money only if the payment has not yet been made. To do this, you must immediately contact the operator at the bank or call the hotline, report an error in your personal account, in a chat with the bank, advises Nadezhda Polishchuk. According to the expert, after crediting money to the wrong account, the payer must write an application, but this is not a guarantee of a refund.
RBC-Real Estate Sberbank explained that if a payment on someone else’s receipt has already been made, then the maximum that bank employees can do is contact the recipient and inform them that the operation was erroneous. But the bank cannot take away even mistakenly transferred money from someone, since it is only a transfer entity. Only the recipient himself can make a refund, the financial and credit organization explained.
If you paid through the Russian Post
Payment for utilities in post offices is accepted only in cash, and you must have a receipt with you. In case of an erroneous transfer, you can apply for a refund of the transferred funds. It can be submitted:
Based on the results of the review of the application, the Russian Post is obliged to conduct an audit and report on it. The service can refund the money if an employee of this organization made a mistake when making a payment. If the owner of the apartment made a mistake, then the money will most likely not be reimbursed, explains Andrei Saunin.
The application review period is usually up to 30 days. If the organization is inactive and does not give an answer, you can contact Rospotrebnadzor:
If you paid through the services
Some owners pay for housing and communal services through special services, where it is also possible to make a mistake when specifying the personal account number. For example, through GIS housing and communal services or “City”. These services have a feedback form or contact details, where, in case of an erroneous payment, you can write an appeal describing the current situation, explains Nadezhda Polishchuk. According to the expert, in GIS you need to go to the section “Send an appeal or complaint” and select “Problems related to errors in receipts”. And in the “City” application there is a chat with round-the-clock support in which you can describe the problem.
According to the results of the application, the services may return the mistakenly paid funds, but refusal cannot also be excluded, warns Andrei Saunin.
If negotiations with the recipient of the payment did not lead to a result and the money was not returned, it is necessary to go to court (Photo: Alexey Zotov / TASS)
What to do if the money is not returned
If contacting the organization through which the payment was made did not yield results and the money was not returned, then you can proceed to the next step — contact the person for whom you mistakenly paid. For example, if the payment was made on a receipt that accidentally got into the mailbox and you did not throw it away, then it is not difficult to find this person — the address and name of the payer are indicated in the document. And, most likely, he will turn out to be your neighbor. It is worth trying to arrange for the amount accidentally paid to be returned to you by presenting evidence of such a payment, for example, a receipt or a receipt for payment, says Nadezhda Polishchuk.
For greater efficiency, we can refer to Article 1102 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which is devoted to such a legal institution as unjustified enrichment. Referring to these provisions of the law, you can demand a refund, adds Evgenia Kvartalnova.
But if you do not have the necessary address and name (for example, if you threw away the receipt after payment or made a mistake when entering the payer’s code), then you will not be able to contact the person for whom it was paid directly. The management company will not give the address, citing data confidentiality.
If you have the same management company with the recipient of the payment
In such a situation, it is necessary to write an application and submit it to the management company. In the application, it is necessary to demand not the return of mistakenly paid funds, but the transfer to your personal account of the amount that mistakenly went to someone else’s account, explains Nadezhda Polishchuk. Management companies can meet halfway in such situations, the lawyer says.
To understand that you have the same management company with the person whose personal account the money went to by mistake, you can use the payer’s number, explained in the “Zhilishchnik” of the Bibirevo district. If the first four digits of the correct and incorrect billing numbers match, it is likely that both owners have the same management company. If the first six digits match, then the probability of this increases to almost 100%. If the first digits do not match, then, most likely, the CC is different.
If the CC is different
The search for the recipient of an erroneous payment will be seriously complicated if the management companies are different. The bank through which the payment was made probably has information about the address of the payee, but most likely the organization will not give it, citing data confidentiality, says Andrei Saunin. According to lawyers, you can find the area of residence of the recipient of the incorrect payment using the Sberbank Online service. To do this, select the housing and communal services payment line and enter the payer’s code. After that, the area of the capital to which this code belongs will be highlighted.
The next step is to contact the multifunctional center of the area. The MFC of the Bibirevo district explained that they would not give the address of the payee, but they could provide contacts of the management company of the house. Next, you should write a statement to this Criminal Code describing the problem. Andrey Saunin confirmed that the maximum that can be counted on is the address of the management company. All negotiations will have to be conducted with her, without reaching a specific recipient of the payment.
The last step is the trial
If negotiations with the recipient of the payment did not lead to a result and the money was not returned, it is necessary to go to court. If the amount is less than 50 thousand rubles, the case is considered by the magistrate’s court, and if more, then the city court.
To prepare for the trial, you need to:
In the presence of this evidence, a refund to the plaintiff is practically guaranteed. And the defendant, with whom it was not possible to reach an amicable agreement, may be ordered by the court to pay the plaintiff’s expenses for the services of a lawyer, says Evgenia Kvartalnova. But if a large amount was mistakenly transferred and the defendant cannot reimburse it immediately, then by court decision, the debt can be divided into parts.
Experts warn that if the payer does not have the contacts of the payee or his management company in his hands, then it is almost impossible to return the money, since there is no one to make financial claims to. “There is only one piece of advice to give here — to look for contacts. If it is impossible to find contacts, and the bank or payment service has not returned the money, then they will most likely have to be forgotten,” lawyer Andrei Saunin summarizes.
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