Photo: Anton Vergun/TASS
Since March 1, citizens of the Russian Federation living in apartment buildings will receive another surprise, and an extremely unpleasant one. The so-called “communal expenses”, or, as it is now customary to write, “communal resource for the maintenance of common property”, will be charged in a new way. It was, in fact, given to the discretion of the management companies (CC). How much they deign to count, that’s how much citizens will have to pay.
The designated “communal resource for the maintenance of common property” is lighting and heating of entrances, water for cleaning and watering lawns, etc. The very concept appeared in 2017, but then so—called standards were introduced — how much a particular typical house can consume this “resource”. It was distributed according to the number of apartments, and everyone paid.
However, the scandals began immediately. In the event that a store or other organization was present in the high-rise building, the Criminal Code used this for selfish purposes.
“As it turned out, both stores that were in our house at that time paid for housing and communal services… in cash! Directly to the head of the Criminal Code. Although, as the tenants’ asset found out, de facto we paid for them — for water, for light, and for heating. There weren’t even counters there, just the height of arrogance. They forced the Criminal Code to put meters for water and electricity, but they ran into heating. It’s like you can’t count it,” says Marina, a resident of a high—rise building in SVAO.
The situation is typical, moreover, now there is every reason to believe that it will worsen. The standards are canceled from March 1, and the residents of the house will pay for the “real” expense. That is, the sum of all the meters in the apartments will be deducted from the readings of the communal meters, and this will “spread out” to the tenants. As it is easy to guess, the same CC is responsible for the communal counters. It’s impossible to check how much he wants to cheat.
“If the legislation allows attribution somewhere, be sure it will happen! I have not seen a single management company that would not have attributed and would not have taken the upper limit. And here the limit is only the readings of water meters. They can write off debts from shops or some establishments that consume a lot: beauty salons, fitness centers. They will write them off, receive a bribe from them, and all this will be charged to citizens, because it passed through the house counter. Therefore, of course, they will pay more,” explains Konstantin Krokhin, chairman of the Housing Union of Moscow, lawyer.
And if there are no communal meters in a high-rise building? Yes, this is not uncommon, but in this case everything will be even more fun. The Criminal Code is now allowed to operate by the “method of analogues”. That is, a similar house is taken in the same climatic zone and it is identified with yours. As you can easily guess, there are even more opportunities for cheating, since these same analogies can generally be taken “from the lantern”.
But it will be even more fun closer to April 1st — April Fools’ Day. It is then that “dear Russians” will recalculate all household expenses for the past year and … will be required to pay for it all!
“In order not to create tension in society, for the first time the legislator forbade the allocation of a resource volume exceeding the established standards to a resident. The order of their distribution in excess of the standard was introduced only five years later, in 2022,” says lawyer Sergey Sergeev.
The people are silent, and officials, along with their friendly “businessmen”, actively use this. In December 2022, we were deceived, and, as it turned out, thoroughly.
“Tariffs have increased above 9% in almost all regions. The most gentle growth was 12%, but an increase of 24% was recorded. The unpleasant surprise of the indexing that took place is that the benchmark of 9% did not mean anything. The municipal authorities have lost their fear of violating the limits set at the federal level. The interests of resource monopolies are more important to them than the indignation and disagreement of the people,” Konstantin Krokhin believes.
The authorities are silent, pretending that nothing is happening. There seems to be no problem with housing and communal services tariffs, although since January 1, 2023, charges for mythical capital repairs have also been raised by 10.7% at once. As a rule, no one has ever seen these repairs. It’s just money that stupidly goes nowhere.
“We are receiving signals and questions about the avalanche-like increase in prices for housing and communal services, primarily for heating. Citizens from the regions, who have already been recalculated for both heating and household needs, note an increase in the monthly payment by 2-2.5 times. While these are isolated cases of recalculations, the main wave of accruals is likely to occur in March and, according to some estimates, will amount to 50%,” says Sergey Stepashin, Chairman of the Public Council of the Ministry of Construction.
In general, something completely out of the ordinary is happening, especially considering that in Russia now has a clear surplus of energy resources. Oil, coal, gas — there are a lot of these things, production has to be reduced. Because exports have fallen significantly, and it is not yet possible to establish new sales channels. It seems like it’s time to reduce the financial burden on the population, reduce payments for “communal services”. But the authorities think otherwise.
The logic of these “indexing” is completely absent. According to Rosstat, in 2022, household incomes fell by 1%. It is clear that the real figure is many times higher, but let’s assume that this is the case. Why should we be happy to raise the value of what belongs to the people themselves by 15-20%? In a good way, in accordance with the official data of Rosstat, tariffs had to be reduced. At least by 1%, but even that is bread. But the opposite is happening. By the way, 20% of product inflation is also quite an official Rosstat figure…
This simple logic comes to everyone’s mind, especially after studying the next “fat”. People also understand who gets their money. The last money! The funds come from the Criminal Code to the oligarchs, and the officials cover all this, pretending that they do not notice anything. Do not think that all Russians are so stupid, by no means. At the moment, the housing and communal services system is a colossal bomb planted under the Russian statehood. Moreover, the Bickford cord is already burning, and the authorities are only inflating it with their actions. Which is especially dangerous now, when all the “universal people” have turned against the Russian Federation.
“The existing model is a market economy + private ownership of the means of production. Or, more simply, capitalism. And private ownership of the means of production is the property that was once state—owned, but as a result of Chubais’ privatization of the 90s it was stolen from the people.
A vicious circle is emerging: the Russian authorities do not want defeat in the war with the collective West. But at the same time, they do not want economic mobilization involving nationalization or de-privatization of the means of production in the tenacious hands of the oligarchs. The authorities are clearly not ready to break this vicious circle. The vicious circle will have to be broken by those who have saved Russia more than once. That is, the people,” says Valentin Katasonov, Doctor of Economics, Professor.
Alas, such forecasts for the short term are no longer isolated. The situation in the country is terrible. The economy is not developing, the population is rapidly impoverishing, and officials of all ranks continue to rub something into us. They don’t believe the authorities, no one believes anyone. And they are waiting for another dirty trick from them. Here we are, waiting again. Maybe it’s time to stop all this mess?
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