The cost of maintaining houses in the capital will increase: what happened?

Since March 1, Kyiv residents have been forced to pay more for the maintenance of apartment buildings – the tariff has increased to UAH 12.84 per 1 sq. m of total area of housing or non-residential premises. However, the cost varies depending on the district: it ranges from UAH 12.50 to UAH 13.08.

According to Oleg Popenko, head of the Union of Consumers of Public Utilities, this is happening because of the competition for managers of apartment buildings in the capital, which took place last year.

In his opinion, now the townspeople are “reaping the results of the competition.” He was referring to high-rise buildings that were previously serviced by management companies in 10 districts of the capital, which is about 8,000 residential buildings.

– The competition was held, but with numerous violations. They were detected both at the beginning of the formation of the competition documentation and during the selection of the winners. After all, the same 10 management companies that had previously been engaged in building management won. No company that could compete with the municipal management companies was allowed to participate in the competition. These participants, by the way, offered the cost of servicing apartment buildings 50% cheaper than the municipal management companies. But they were simply dismissed. As for me, this means that the competition was held “for their own”, because now the cost of servicing a building has almost doubled, previously it was within 7 hryvnias. And I do not exclude that the competition was needed only in order to raise the cost of maintaining buildings, – the expert noted.

There are many violations.

Popenko reported that violations were recorded in the competition for managers not only in the formation of the necessary documentation, but also during its conduct.

– Of course, residents could not have known about such a competition, and, in fact, they do not necessarily need to know, because they cannot influence it in any way. What is more important here is that there were companies that offered a cheaper price and submitted documents to participate in the competition. At first, they accepted the documents, and after a couple of days they were informed that the documents were not accepted, goodbye. This, in my opinion, is a very serious violation, – he said.

Questions about the cost of maintaining houses

On behalf of the Union of Consumers of Municipal Services, Popenko prepared and sent a corresponding appeal to the Ministry of Public Utilities, the Cabinet of Ministers, the State Consumer Protection Agency, and the State Service for Food, Agriculture and Food Safety to sort out the situation surrounding this competition.

– There are questions about the very calculations of the cost of maintaining apartment buildings. It is determined from 14 points, the main of which is cleaning the adjacent territory. But such cleaning is formed at the expense of the land plot. If the land is not owned by the co-owners of the apartment building, then people should not pay for its cleaning, – he emphasized.

Where did you get the value from?

At the general meeting of co-owners of an apartment building, residents can vote that they are ready to recognize the adjacent plot as one that is serviced by their building. And only in this case will it be possible to determine the volume of cleaning of the adjacent territory.

– But no one has held such meetings of residents, there are no protocols in most cases. I will tell you more, only in the Darnytsia district of the capital, only 30% of buildings have technical documentation for houses. And this is very important, without it it is impossible to determine the amount of cleaning in the house itself. Of course, you can take some figures from the ceiling of 12.50 UAH and even 13.08 UAH, but all this, if desired, can be revealed and “dreamers” can be held responsible, – the specialist noted.

Is it worth paying?

Popenko advises Kyiv residents to first carefully read the contract with the management company and not rush to pay the specified amounts for house maintenance.

– The contract should be read very carefully. Citizens should check all charges and request from the management company a list of documentation confirming the above calculations. If there are no such documents, then in this case it is not necessary to sign the contract. And accordingly, it is not worth paying people. Officials should eliminate the violations and offer the consumer a new contract, – he explained.

Sourse: Source