Deciphering the abbreviation HOA - "Association of homeowners". This is an organization created by the owners for the joint management of land and premises that are jointly owned. All activities of the organization are carried out in accordance with the Housing Code of the Russian Federation and are regulated at the legislative level (Article 135 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation).

Why is it necessary and what is its purpose?

The main purpose of the homeowners association is effective management. What is it for and what does it do? The task of the organization is to create comfortable living conditions for the owners. These include:

• collective management of house property;
• disposal of common property and ensuring its use;
• maintenance and storage of property;
• utilities for residents of the house;
• other actions required for the successful management of the house.

To whom is it subordinate?

HOA is a partnership formed directly by the residents of the house, therefore, the HOA is not subject to anyone except the current legislation. The supreme body in the HOA is the board and the general meeting of the partnership is accountable to its board.

Is it a commercial enterprise, a legal entity or not?

The homeowners association is not commercial organization(Clause 2, Article 291 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). The only way to generate profit for this organization may be to attract an additional source of financing (rental of the premises of the house, sale of advertising space on the houses, etc.). In this case, all funds received are directed to the maintenance of property, without distribution among the participants of the HOA.

Is it a legal entity? According to current legislation, this species organization refers to a legal entity. On an equal footing with other legal entities, management bodies should conduct office work, pay taxes, report to regulatory authorities, cooperate with contractors and suppliers, etc.

Reference. Obtaining legal status persons by united owners occurs after state registration.

What is a Homeowners Association?

An association of housing associations is an association of two or more structures to conduct joint activities and protect the interests of residents (Article 142 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation). This organization has its own charter and registration with the tax authority. Activities:

• protection of the interests of residents in the authorities;
• joint service utilities;
• joint agreements with suppliers;
• exchange of experience in debt management.

Formation features:

• meeting of tenants in each HOA and the collective decision to merge;
• approval of the charter;
• election of the board;
• registration as a legal faces;
• pooling of assets.

An association is created if, at a general vote in each individual partnership, the owners of at least half of the residential area of ​​the house voted for this decision.

Advantages and disadvantages

The advantages of this form of government include:

• resolution of all issues at the meeting of tenants;
• the opinion of each tenant is taken into account;
• independent selection of contractors;
• transparent activity.

Minuses:

• imperfection of the legislation;
• if there are debtors among the tenants, the court may recover the amount of the debt and there is a possibility that the tenants will have to pay the bills a second time;
• clashes with beneficiaries;
• the probability of making a mistake with the choice of chairman;
• the amount of payments for operation is higher;
• the lack of strict measures in the law to combat non-payers.

Comparison of HOAs with other forms of government:

Read more about the pros and cons of an HOA.

Organization and charter

The main steps are:

1. Organization of the initiative group.
2. Holding a general meeting of tenants (voting for the adoption of the HOA, choosing the chairman and members of the board, agreeing on the charter, drawing up minutes).
3. Registration of HOA as a legal entity.

The charter of the partnership is a document in accordance with which the management of an apartment building is carried out. This document is the legal basis of the organization, on the basis of which all activities in the partnership are built.

The adoption and approval of the charter takes place collectively in person or in absentia at a general meeting of residents. The process of adopting the charter consists of several stages: drafting, approval, approval. In the process of adopting the charter, Art. 45-48 LC RF.

Chairman and Board

The board is elected from among the tenants at the general meeting (Article 145 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation). The owners determine a candidate for the role of a member of the board and are approved for this position in the course of voting. Further, at the meeting of the members of the board, the election takes place by voting. A prerequisite is the presence at the meeting in addition to the members of the board of at least 50 percent of the members of the partnership.

State

Also in the state are:

1. accountant;
2. security;
3. technician;
4. dispatcher;
5. passport officer;
6. locksmith;
7. street cleaner;
8. cleaner;
9. electrician.

Entry order

To become a member of the HOA, you will need to write an application and submit it to the board along with an extract from the state register confirming the ownership of the property. At the general meeting, after discussion, the final decision is made.

Can you not join?

The need for a protocol

Each meeting is accompanied by mandatory conduct, which records the agenda and the result of the vote. The main part of the protocol is the agenda. This section contains items about current issues.

Further, the result of voting on each issue considered in the main part is recorded in the form and the decision is formulated. The last part of the document contains a summary of the results of the meeting, brief information on issues in which it was not possible to reach an agreement, a list of completed tasks, decisions made. The document is certified by the signature of the chairman and secretary.

How do I find out which partnership serves the house?

For more information on how to find out which partnership serves the house, read.

Payment of bills

The partnership of owners has the right to independently generate payment documents and send them to the residents of the house. You can pay in cash at the cash desk of the HOA. Pay online - through the GIS housing and communal services service, on the State Services portal or in personal account your bank. Fee included:

• for hire;
• for repair work;
• for cleaning common areas;
• overhaul;
• seasonal work;
• maintaining order in common areas (lighting, minor repairs).

You can learn more about the features of paying bills from.

Violations and problems at work

The main problems of partnerships are:

• the presence of debtors for public services;
• relationship with the developer (in new homes);
• lack of information about the activities of the partnership due to the ignoring of general meetings by residents;
• indifference of the owners and unwillingness to personally participate in the improvement;
• the probability of choosing an unscrupulous chairman;
• the emergence of conflicts between tenants and the board.

The main way to solve many difficulties in the work of the organization is the competent choice of a person for the role of chairman. When choosing a candidate for a chairman who will make decisions on financial matters, make transactions and make decisions, you should carefully study its reputation.

Another way to solve problems is to form a control commission from among the residents, which will monitor and control the actions of the chairman and members of the board. In this case, the mechanism of the functioning of the organization will be very effective and successful.

Is it possible to withdraw from the composition of 1 apartment or house?

You can leave the HOA with one apartment, for this you will need to pay off all debts to the partnership and submit an application for the desire to enter the board of the HOA. Exit from the HOA with the whole house is possible in the event of liquidation or reorganization of the partnership (Article 140 of the LC RF). To do this, each owner must write a statement of withdrawal and submit it to the board.

You will learn more nuances about whether it is possible to leave the HOA with one apartment or the whole house. To carry out this procedure, it is necessary to obtain a majority of votes for the reorganization, notify each member of the organization in form No. P12003, register a new body with the tax office, pay a fee, transfer rights and obligations to a new organization, and make changes to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.

HOA is one of the forms of management that allows each owner to take a personal part in solving the problems and issues of the functioning of the house. This form has its advantages and disadvantages, which you need to pay attention to when choosing the form of government for an apartment building.

01.04.19 46 430 66

To save on heating and hot water

I am 30 years old, and for the third year I have been the chairman of the HOA of my house.

Gennady Goncharov

chairman of the HOA

With the help of the HOA, the tenants themselves manage the apartment building: they can influence its improvement and reduce the cost of utilities. For example, in two years we managed to reduce payments for heat and hot water by more than half. I live in an apartment of 60 m² and in January alone I saved more than 2 thousand rubles on heating: I used to pay about 3500 rubles a month, now no more than 1300.

I will tell you how we did it, what difficulties we encountered and how they could have been avoided.

For residents of houses with their own boiler room

The author talks about how, with the help of the HOA, the residents of his house were able to win back the boiler room on the roof from a third-party company and reduce payments for heating and hot water. Therefore, this article is primarily for residents of houses with their own boiler room, who pay too much for its resources.

This does not mean that other readers will not be interested in reading the article. The homeowners association independently manages an apartment building and resolves issues that Management Company usually does not want to deal with: high-quality and durable repair of entrances, saving money for residents to pay for utilities, fencing the territory, etc.

If something does not suit you in the house where you live, perhaps the creation of an HOA will solve the problem.

HOA or TSN. Since September 1, 2014, associations of property owners (TSN) have appeared, which legally replaced HOAs. Now only TSNs can be registered, and existing HOAs must make changes to their constituent documents. TSN - more general concept, which includes the association of owners not only of premises in apartment buildings, but also of residential buildings themselves, garden plots, summer cottages, garages, etc.

Despite the fact that legally there is no HOA, the housing code still contains the term "homeowners' association". It is the HOA, and not the TSN, that has the right to manage an apartment building. In the article we will use the term "HOA", because it is more familiar. And the speech in the article is about the partnership of tenants of an apartment building, and not about something else.

Why we decided to create an HOA

I live in an ordinary provincial town - in Engels, this is the Saratov region. 225 thousand people live here. My house is ten-storey, built in 2008, it has 180 apartments. The entire first floor is occupied by shops.

A few years ago it occurred to me that life in our apartment building you can improve on your own. I found like-minded people among the neighbors. For our own money, we installed video surveillance, cleared an abandoned area in the middle of the yard, which the homeless loved, and thought about fencing the territory of the house with a fence. When I once again received a huge payment for 7,000 rubles from the management company for heating and hot water, I realized that something else needed to be changed.

We decided to find out how many enterprising tenants were in the house, and put up an announcement about the meeting on the entrances. Only seven people came, although the house has five entrances and 180 apartments. At the meeting, we came to the conclusion that the reason for the huge and incomprehensible payments for heat is our rooftop boiler house. During the construction of the house, the developer assured the equity holders that the boiler room was a guarantee of savings, but it turned out the other way around.

Our boiler house was not in common ownership, as required by law, but belonged to a company whose founder is the general director of the developer. The boiler room was leased to another company with a license to operate boilers. Its founders included a person with the same last name.

Because of this chain, residents were forced to pay for heating and hot water at a high rate, and not pay for the resources of the boiler house and the actual costs of its maintenance, as it should be by law. This situation could be corrected only through the court - and only if the HOA, and not specific tenants, filed a corresponding claim. Individual residents will not be able to manage such a dangerous facility as a boiler room, and the management company does not need extra work.

So we decided to create an HOA.

It remains to choose a person who will deal with all this. At that time, I was poorly versed in the topic of accruals for housing and communal services, but I was sure that if I wasn’t in the management of the HOA, then sooner or later theft and waste would begin. I also understood that if I was just on the board of the HOA, then I would not have sufficient motivation to figure everything out. My income at that time was more than 100 thousand rubles a month, and I could afford to spend time studying a new field. Therefore, I became the chairman of the HOA of my house.

What is HOA

In an apartment building there is common property of residents: walls, roof, basement, porches, land, equipment - everything that serves several apartments or premises. For example, a cold water riser in a bathroom, through which water flows to neighbors above or below, is common property, and the pipes for wiring around the room extending from it are the property of residents.

Over time, everything becomes unusable, everything needs to be monitored - this is what management companies (MCs) do. But an ordinary management company is primarily a commercial organization. It may be professional and cost-effective, but not interested in lowering the costs of the owners or in making the house stand longer. Typically, the more money saved while maintaining a home, the more profit management gets, often to the detriment of the quality of work and utilities.

The real owners of the house are a homeowners association, HOA. HOA is a non-profit association of owners in an apartment building who decided to manage the house together, ensure the continuity of utilities and maintain common property.

The professionalism of HOA members is often far from perfect, but responsibility for your home and for your neighbors is a good motivation that replaces professional knowledge.

Governing bodies of the HOA. The main governing body in an apartment building is the general meeting of owners. It is it that decides who will manage the house: the management company or the HOA. The general meeting also decides how to use the common property and can change it.

The assembly of members of the HOA is a less powerful body. It makes decisions on the activities of the partnership, selects a board from among its members, sets membership fees, etc.

The board is a few people who manage the activities of the HOA. They decide operational tasks, think over the strategy of the partnership and submit proposals to general meetings of owners or meetings of members of the HOA. They also elect a chairman of the board from among their members. All or some members of the board may receive remuneration for their work from the funds of the association, if the meeting of members so decides.

All employees of the HOA report directly to the Chairman. According to the law, he executes the decisions of the board, but in reality the opposite is true. The meeting of members of the HOA assigns a monthly remuneration to the chairman.

The law does not prohibit, in addition to the chairman, to hire a professional manager in the HOA. The only question is finances. In our HOA, the salary of the manager is now 17,000 rubles, the chairman is 2,900 rubles.

The HOA must also have an audit commission. She makes sure that financial activities HOA everything was in order in terms of registration and fairness. Her task is to find inconsistencies in financial reports and check whether all expenses are targeted. Based on the results of her checks, she reports to the tenants and can complain to the supervisory authorities - the tax, housing inspection or the prosecutor's office.

Plan for the creation of an HOA

There is a lot of information on the Internet about how to create an HOA. But I still recommend contacting a lawyer in the housing sector so that he can control the procedure. It cost us 10 thousand rubles.

Initiative group. First, among the residents of the house, you need to find at least three like-minded people who share your position on creation of an HOA and ready to act. This can be done with the help of announcements in the entrances and in the chat at home, if there is one.

Your like-minded people are the future board of the HOA. In order for a board vote to always make a decision, the number of members must be odd.

Finance. For the operation of the HOA, money is needed. They are included in utility bills and are indicated on receipts by the line "Maintenance of common property."

First of all, money is needed for the salaries of employees - a locksmith, an electrician, an accountant, a janitor and others. In our HOA for 180 apartments, the cost of salaries of working personnel is 76 thousand rubles per month:

• manager - 20 thousand rubles;
• accountant - 15 thousand;
• locksmith and cleaners - 10 thousand each;
• electrician, janitor and dispatcher - 7 thousand each.

76 000 R

expenses for salaries of working personnel in our HOA

The level of salaries in the regions is different, so talk to the chairmen of the HOA in your city to determine the size.

In addition to salaries for employees, money is spent on housework. They are determined by income and expenditure estimates, which must be drawn up and approved at a meeting of members of the HOA every year.

To understand how much it will cost to maintain an HOA for each apartment, you need to add up the total amount of expenses for the year and divide it by the total area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe apartments and non-residential premises. Get the rate of maintenance and repair of common property for 1 m². Compare it with the amount in the payment: if the rate in the HOA turned out to be more than in the Criminal Code, the HOA is not your option. Residents will not want to pay more.

If the house does not pull the content of the HOA, you can create a council of an apartment building that will interact with the management company and convey to it the wishes of the residents.

General meeting of homeowners

The decision to establish an HOA is made at a general meeting of owners. You need to prepare for this meeting: draw up an agenda, order extracts from Rosreestr in order to compile a list of owners, select dates for the meeting and the end of voting, print out voting forms, etc.

It is very important to draw up the voting agenda correctly so that you do not have to hold the meeting again later. The agenda is a list of issues at the meeting, on which the owners will have to vote for or against.

The following items must be on the agenda of the meeting on the establishment of the HOA:

1. Approval of the chairman and secretary of the meeting, giving them the right to count votes.
2. Approval of the procedure for counting votes, for example, 1 m² of the total area of ​​​​the premises in the property is equal to one vote.
3. The choice of a way to manage a house is a management company or an HOA.
4. Creation of HOA.
5. Approval of the charter of the HOA.
6. Determination of the quantitative composition of the board of the HOA.
7. On the election of members of the board of the HOA.
8. Determination of the quantitative composition of the audit commission.
9. On the election of members of the audit commission.
10. Approval of the person authorized to register the HOA.
11. Approval of the method of notifying apartment owners about accepted general meeting decisions. You can, for example, hang information on the information stand, and not send it out to all residents every time registered letters.
12. Approval of the procedure for formalizing decisions of the general meeting - by a protocol signed by the chairman and secretary of the meeting.
13. Approval of the place of storage of minutes and decisions of the general meeting.
14. Approval of remuneration to the chairman of the board.
15. Approval of the name of the HOA.
16. Approval of a one-time fundraising for the creation of an HOA. It will come in handy to reimburse the expenses of the initiative group for stationery, registration, a lawyer, and so on.

The agenda in the meeting itself must match the agenda in the notice, so you cannot change the list of issues in the process. Questions on the face-to-face part and on the decision sheets must reflect all the information and be clearly worded so that one can vote for, against or abstain without additional comments from the voters. For example, the agenda item "Approval of remuneration to the chairman of the board" in the decision form may look like this: "Approve remuneration to the chairman of the board in the amount of 15,000 rubles per month."

To obtain current list owners, you need to order extracts for all premises of the house through the FGIS service from Rosreestr. One statement costs 4 rubles, but first you need to get a key in your personal account.

By uploading extracts to one of the services for holding general house meetings, for example, on the Burmistr or Roskvartal website, you can print out personal voting forms in which all the owner’s data is already filled in. It is much more convenient to vote in such forms.

Notice to all owners of the meeting. According to extracts from Rosreestr, you need to print sheets of delivery notifications - a table with the data of the owners. This can be done using any of the community meeting services.

With the table, you need to go through the apartments and non-residential premises - shops or banks on the ground floor - and collect as many signatures as possible from the owners that they received a notification. The rest, whom it was not possible to notify personally, will have to send registered letters. The final notice must be sent at least 10 days before the meeting.

The general meeting of owners is usually held in person and in absentia. That is, first a face-to-face meeting is held with everyone who wishes, and then the rest vote on printed forms in absentia and hand over the completed decisions personally or to the mailboxes of the members of the initiative group. The place of collection of completed forms must be indicated in them.

At the on-site part, you need to be ready to answer the questions “What will change the HOA?”, “Who are you?” and “Are you going to steal too?” Promise people absolute transparency of all utility bills and expenses. It is important to understand the purpose of creating an HOA and its difference from the Criminal Code: the excess money collected for the maintenance of common property is spent only on the house, all income and expenses can be controlled, any questions can be asked to the board in person, because board members are residents of the house.

During the absentee part of the meeting, it is inefficient to scatter ballot papers in the mailboxes: people will not vote and will simply throw these pieces of paper away. We'll have to walk around the apartments and each hold a mini-meeting.

The number of votes of each owner corresponds to the area of ​​his property. The opinion of the owner of a three-room apartment is more significant than the owner of a one-room apartment. To create an HOA, you need to get at least 50% of the votes plus one more “For” vote on all issues.

If you use services for holding house-wide meetings, this protocol is prepared automatically. All that remains is to print it out with all the appendices - the register of the owners of the premises in the house, the list of those who voted, the notice of the meeting, powers of attorney and the completed decisions of the owners. Applications are also generated automatically.

Documents must be printed in triplicate: one remains for storage with the chairman of the meeting, the second must be given to the Criminal Code, the third to territorial authority State Housing Inspectorate (GZhI).

The protocol must once again be signed by all the owners who voted for the HOA. In the Criminal Code, you can give photocopies of all ballots so that there are no suspicions about the forgery of the protocol and the incompetence of the meeting. In GZhI you need to hand over the original ballots.

In the Criminal Code and GZhI, it is necessary to attach to the protocol covering letter in two copies for each: on one, employees of the Criminal Code and the GZhI must put a mark on the acceptance of the protocol with annexes. All this must be done within 10 days after the end of the absentee voting. The total duration of the part-time part is not limited, we usually spend it in 2-4 weeks.

Copies of the protocol should also be placed on information stands in the entrances so that all owners of the premises in the house can familiarize themselves with them.

Registration of HOA

Like any legal organization, HOA must be registered with the tax office. Moreover, from 2014 it is necessary to register TSN, and not HOA: otherwise, registration will be refused. Now documents can be submitted electronically and not pay the state duty, but I personally registered the TSN with the tax office.

Attached the finished minutes of the meeting and the charter of TSN in two copies to the application in the form P11001 and signed it in the presence of a notary. The protocol and charter should use the term "TSN", not "HOA", this is important. Paid the state duty - 4000 rubles. He took all the documents to the regional branch of the Federal Tax Service, which deals with registration legal entities. A fresh sample of the charter of TSN can be downloaded on the Internet - and redone for yourself if you don’t like something.

4000 R

state duty for registration of HOA

Our protocol on the creation of a partnership was not signed by all the owners who voted for the HOA, so the tax office did not want to accept my application without a list of signatures. I had to give them a receipt sheet.

After receiving the TIN and PSRN, you need to open a current account, make a seal, get statistics codes, pick up a notice from pension fund and a certificate from the FSS.

Conclusion of contracts for the supply of resources

All resource-supplying organizations with which the management company worked must be sent or delivered personally with a note of delivery of a letter on the creation of an HOA with a requirement to conclude an agreement for the supply of resources. Usually this is a water utility, power engineers, scavengers, elevator workers and intercom operators.

Within a month, resource-supplying organizations must conclude new agreements with the HOA, and the management company must transfer the technical documentation for the house and other documents necessary for work, as well as keys to the premises.

Our rooftop boiler house is used to heat another house, which stands nearby. Therefore, ideally, we had to create an HOA for two houses at once in order to reduce management costs - the salaries of an accountant and a manager, a dispatcher, office expenses, etc. But everything went wrong. The law says very little about the creation of an HOA for several houses, and there is almost nothing to be found on the Internet on this topic either.

We had a common boiler room, and according to the public cadastral map, the plots under the houses had a common border. But it turned out that in fact the land plots of the houses were not formed, and the commission with the participation of representatives of the city administration did not find common engineering communications. After talking with a dozen different lawyers, we came to the conclusion that it is necessary to create an HOA for one house.

Acceptance of the house from the management company

Before accepting the house from the management company, you need to draw up a defective statement - a list of visible problems in the house. This is done so that in the future the HOA will have a reason to sue the Criminal Code for money that was not spent on home repairs, although they should have been. So we managed to sue about 380 thousand rubles for current repairs, which the Criminal Code did not do.

With a commission from the Criminal Code, you will need to re-walk through the house and point out all the points from the list. It is better to invite a familiar locksmith or an experienced chairman of another HOA to bypass the basement and the technical floor so that they see problems that you may not know about: blockages in the sewer beds, idle compensation tanks, clogged heat exchangers, etc.

Documents for home management The management company must restore at its own expense and transfer the HOA within three months. This:

1. Technical passport of the house.
2. Documents for metering devices.
3. Documents on the acceptance of the results of work, estimates and inventories of work.
4. Inspection reports, condition checks.
5. Acts of inspections and issued passports of readiness for the heating period.
6. Instruction manual for MKD.
7. Cadastral plan of the land plot.
8. Extract from Rosreestr.
9. Town-planning plan of the land plot.
10. Documents on the operation of an easement or other encumbrance.
11. Project documentation.
12. Lists of owners, tenants and tenants.
13. Agreements on the use of common property of MKD.
14. Decisions and minutes of general meetings of owners.
15. Other documents related to the management of an apartment building, the list of which is established by the decision of the general meeting of owners of premises.

Demand all documents, even if you think they are useless. Handing over a pile of dusty construction projects to my house, the director of the UK sarcastically stated that they constantly use them. In these "useless" projects, we found that the entrances of the house had to be equipped with inclined lifts for the disabled. Now our HOA is filing a lawsuit against the developer, referring to construction projects.

Meters data. Also, when accepting a house, you need to sign lists of meters with readings: they are used to make the final settlement of the Criminal Code with residents. It is very important to go through all the apartments together with the staff of the management company in order to correctly compile these lists: this will save the tenants money and your time in the future.

Many tenants do not submit testimony to the Criminal Code, especially in recent months transition to the HOA. Then the management company charges a fee according to the standard. And then people transfer to the HOA the readings of metering devices with numbers less than that transmitted by the Criminal Code. That is, your house consumed, for example, 500 cubic meters of cold water in the first month, and people submit readings with a negative volume, in which they do not have to pay for water, but you pay them. This is a big headache for the HOA: you will have to calculate cubes according to the standard and change the starting meter readings that are included in the program.

Fight for the boiler room

Having received power over the house in our hands, our HOA did not receive the main thing - the roof boiler room. Since the ownership of the boiler room was officially registered for third party company, we filed a lawsuit to recognize the right of common shared ownership of the disputed boiler house. Before that, we held a general house meeting on granting the HOA the right to file a lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, we referred to the fact that the rooftop boiler house is common house property, which, according to the law, cannot belong to any third-party owner. We also wrote that any owner of the premises in the house, who should also own the share of the boiler room, can apply to the court to recover his property from illegal use.

Since one organization owned the premises, and another organization was engaged in maintenance, all expensive boilers were allegedly purchased by the second organization and were their property. Therefore, in the lawsuit, we asked to recognize the right of common shared ownership of both the premises and all the equipment in it. According to the law, these are two separate requirements, so we paid two state duties of 6,000 rubles each.

In the lawsuit, we also asked to reimburse the costs of a lawyer in the amount of 30 thousand rubles.

This was not the first disputed roof boiler house for the defendant, and the trial was not easy: the proceedings lasted 6 months. On September 20, 2017, we filed a lawsuit, there were five court sessions, five more times the consideration was postponed for one reason or another - the defendant's failure to appear, the lack of the requested documents, the application for postponement. On March 26, 2018, we signed a settlement agreement: the boiler room became common property, and the defendant had to leave all the equipment in it, which also became the property of the house. According to the amicable agreement, the defendant did not reimburse the expenses for a lawyer in full - only 21,000 rubles.

Fight to lower payments

The HOA began work when the trial for the boiler room had not yet begun. Therefore, at first we had to conclude an agreement for the supply of heat and hot water with an organization that previously served the boiler house, and figure out how this boiler house works. The agreement was frankly boorish: heat supply organization we had only rights, but the HOA had obligations, we undertook to pay for heat in the first place.

A few months later, the tenants began to notice with surprise that the fee gradually became higher and higher. We did not understand what was happening: the temperature of hot water felt the same, but we had to pay more for the cube. In a neighboring house, which was supplied with heat from our boiler house, a cube of hot water already cost 400 rubles instead of 250, as it used to be on average.

Calculation of the cost of hot water. The payment document has a table of accrual calculations, each line in it is a separate service or utility resource. The table has five main columns:

1. Name of service.
2. Individual volume of consumption.
3. The volume of consumption for the maintenance of common property.
4. Tariff per unit of volume.
5. The total amount for the service.

Most often, a two-component method is used to calculate hot water in modern homes: cold water and a coolant enter the house - hot water with dissolved reagents against pipe corrosion, and hot water is prepared using a heat exchanger. That is, when you open a hot water tap, you do not get a coolant that has come from a pipe from somewhere, but water heated to the desired temperature already on the territory of your house. In this case, in the payment card, not one line “DHW” appears, but two: “DHW supply”, that is, cold water that is heated to hot, and “Heat energy for the preparation of DHW”.

This is how it works in our house: in the basement there is a heat exchanger that heats hot water, and the coolant descends to it from the roof boiler room. In the payment, the amount was growing precisely for heat energy, which is needed to prepare hot water. Therefore, the first thing we did was to start dealing with heat losses.

Width="1350" height="1612" class=" outline-bordered" style="max-width: 1350px; height: auto" data-bordered="true"> her preparation. In January 2018, 242 rubles per 1 m³ of hot water came out: (31.8 + 453.89) ÷ 2 = 242.49 R

Thermal losses. If hot water flows from point A to point B along a long pipe, and the temperature of the air around this pipe is much lower than the temperature of the water, then the water at point B will be colder than at point A. This phenomenon is called heat loss.

In modern apartment buildings, as in ours, hot water is constantly circulating throughout all floors, so that when you turn on the hot water tap, you get it immediately hot. If there is no circulation, you have to drain all the water between your faucet and the heating device each time until it flows hot. And while the water circulates throughout the house, it cools down. The more it cools down, the more heat energy is needed to heat it up again.

We spent about 65 thousand rubles on the basement, 16 thousand rubles on the technical floor. In addition to the pipes, we thermally insulated the entrances to the basement, as well as the joints between the sections of the house on the technical floor, so that frosty air enters the room only through the ventilation openings and the pipes cool less.

So it was possible to achieve a reduction in the average temperature difference between the supply and return by 5-7%. But it’s impossible to say that people noticed this from the bills - the temperature fluctuations from day to day were too great: the air temperature outside the window and the water temperature at the inlet changed.

Temperature analysis. Problems with the boiler room were growing: too often hot water ceased to be hot and it was not always clear whether the control room of the service organization was aware of this.

My main occupation is web programming. Having mastered a little programming of microcontrollers, I made a device that allows you to see in real time via the Internet a graph of changes in the temperatures of hot water and coolant from the boiler room. When temperatures drop, I immediately receive an alert in Telegram, and from the schedule you can understand whether there was an accident in the boiler room or a problem in something else.

Temperature analysis helped to find the main reason for the instability of the heat supply: the hot coolant was mixed with water, which passes through the open valves on the switched off boilers, in the boiler room, and not on the way to the heat exchanger.

Boiler service. In May 2018, we finally received a boiler room with all the equipment in the common property and stopped paying for hot water at the rate. We found an organization that helped us take over the boiler room and draw up a defective statement so that we could apply for compensation for the cost of repairing all non-working equipment.

The same organization was supposed to service the boiler house for 55 thousand per month. The amount was divided by all owners of premises in two houses in proportion to the area, it turned out to be 2.91 R per square meter. We also decided to collect 1.5 R from each square meter to the boiler house repair fund for upcoming repairs. In total, the owners gave 4.41 R per square meter for servicing the boiler house.

A few months later, we began to notice that in apartments with minimal hot water consumption - pensioners, for example, are trying to save water - due to the payment for the maintenance and repair of the boiler room, the amount for the summer month has not changed at all. A cube of hot water cost 150 rubles instead of 250, but another 100 rubles were spent on maintaining the boiler room. Although no work was done on the boiler house. Therefore, we found another service organization for 35 thousand rubles a month. Now, taking into account the contribution for future repairs, the maintenance of the boiler house costs the owners 2.86 R per square meter.

As a result, the cause of frequent problems with hot water and large payments was not only a high water tariff, but also improper maintenance of the boiler room: hot water cooled down due to lack of thermal insulation and problems with the coolant, and service organizations took money for repairs that were not carried out. Only when our HOA sorted out all the problems and registered the boiler house as common property so that the tenants would stop paying the tariff, payments for water and heat decreased.

"Theft" in the HOA and the Criminal Code

When we learn about the work carried out by the Criminal Code, we are often surprised at the huge amounts. After three years of work in the HOA, I realized that this is not always a sign of theft or kickbacks. Difficulties in finding contractors working on a cashless basis lead to a strong overpricing. Such contractors do not want to deal with minor work, so the price is still rising. A lot of energy is spent on finding a reasonably priced offer with a guarantee of quality. It turns out that outwardly quite simple work adds up to a big sum.

And there are also such works, the need for which none of the residents can even guess: flushing the heat exchanger, preventive maintenance of the sewer system. These services are expensive and must be carried out regularly. Great amount equipment in the house requires repair and maintenance, and it seems to the residents that they only pay for cleaning in the entrance and in the yard. The owners of non-residential premises, from which the same amount is collected for the maintenance of common property, are generally perplexed about what they are paying money for, because they pay both the janitor in front of the store and the cleaner separately.

Results: how much we reduced the cost of heating and hot water

In the heating season, what we have been working towards for two years has finally come: payments for heating and hot water have become significantly lower. Now paying for heating and hot water is a reason to brag to your friends. In January 2017, I paid 229 rubles for 1 cubic meter of hot water, and 2997 rubles for heating. In January 2019, I paid 88 rubles for 1 cubic meter of hot water, 1,091 rubles for heating, and another 206 rubles for maintaining the boiler room. At the same time, the temperature of hot water is now on average 5 degrees higher than it was, so its monthly consumption should be lower.

88 R

I paid for a cube of hot water in January 2019. A year earlier I paid 229 rubles

Knowing the total area of ​​​​the premises of the house in the property and the total amount of hot water consumed during these months, you can compare the total amounts payable from the whole house.

Heating and hot water costs for our house

Heating and maintenance of the boiler room for the whole house

January 2019

241,775.48 R

January 2018

360 522.53 R

January 2017

551 032.21 Р

Heating and maintenance of the boiler room for an apartment of 61.1 m²

January 2019

1297.77 R

January 2018

1935.16 P

January 2017

2957.76 R

Heating and maintenance of the boiler room for 1 m²

January 2019

21.24 R

To be the owner of property means not only to have rights to it, but also obligations. Therefore, any apartment owner is responsible for his apartment, and to some extent for the whole house, for what happens there. There are several ways to manage an apartment building, you need to choose the most suitable option together with all residents.

One option is the HOA. The question arises, what is an HOA and how is its work structured.

The concept of HOA

HOA is a non-profit enterprise that is created by apartment owners to manage their apartment building, this is approved at a general meeting of residents.

A homeowners association is a legal entity, in connection with this it is registered in accordance with all laws and regulations, its charter is created, a legal address is indicated, a seal is selected, and a bank account is opened.

All members of the partnership and apartment owners must pay the costs, which depend on the size of their share. Moreover, if one of them violates the law, or interferes with the work of the HOA, then he can be excluded from the partnership.

It is important to understand what the management of an apartment building with the help of an HOA is, because in the laws exact definition No.

Therefore, it is necessary to determine what signs relate to management, this is a process of activity, consistency and unity in the performance of tasks, actions must be purposeful, which is an object and a subject.

What problems do homeowners face?

Despite the fact that the HOA is a legal entity, the process of managing and managing it, however, differs from the management of a conventional enterprise.

For example, if disagreements arise in the organization over management or dishonesty and dishonesty of one of the employees is revealed, the director of the company can simply dismiss him and continue working.

The leadership of the Homeowners Association, they call him the chairman, everything is different. Because the effectiveness of HOA management largely depends on relations with residents.

And if in an ordinary organization the head can make some decision on his own and alone, then this is impossible, an accountant and an audit committee must be present when making a decision.

Also one of the problems of management is that it is not flexible. At least 6 people are needed to make even the simplest decision, otherwise it may be considered illegal.

It can be said that performance HOA work because of this, it sometimes goes down. Also, the members of the board and the leadership of the HOA periodically need to be updated.

The problem of the Homeowners Association is the fact that many apartment owners have different views on the management of the house and the use of the adjacent territory.

For example, some residents plant greenery on the territory, plant flowers, make flower beds, limit dog owners so that they do not walk on the lawns, while other residents do not care so much, and they believe that such territories that you can only admire, but not use .

IN founding documents The HOA indicates the term for which the chairman is elected. The chairman of the HOA must permanent basis submit accounting documents to the tax office, conclude contracts.

How the HOA works

The management of the Association of Homeowners in an apartment building is its head or chairman, the board, and the general meeting.

There is a situation when the chairman could not be elected, so a manager is appointed. Is with him employment contract, according to which the HOA hires a manager.

According to the agreement, the manager of the HOA must be responsible for:

• for the normal operation of all communications at home,
• organization of the budget and estimates for the next year, for establishing communication with residents,
• for communication with the municipality, organization of work with contractors,
• for work with debtors among tenants and control over the fact that the debt was repaid, and other points provided for by the charter of the HOA.

The board of the HOA also has its own functions. The board must draw up a work plan for the next year, make sure that all laws are observed by the tenants.

Preparation of reports to the general meeting on the work done, development of estimates and decoding of their articles for analysis at the meeting, hiring workers to clean the house and territory, and other duties under the charter.

Rights and obligations of members of the HOA

The rights of HOA participants include the fact that they can dispose of their property without the consent of other participants in the partnership.

As well as the opportunity to participate in meetings, express their proposals for improving the quality of life, access to common property, the ability to choose board members, and put forward their candidacy.

The duties of members of the HOA include:

• You can use the house and the territory in accordance with sanitary and fire safety standards, and according to the law, you need to pay utility bills on time and in full,
• comply with the requirements of the law, which is related to the management of the house, all participants are required to take part in the maintenance and overhaul of the house.

The Homeowners Association can independently:

In the process of exercising their rights, the HOA is obliged to focus primarily on the legislation of our country, to the extent that this will affect the interests of third parties, especially residents of the house.

If you follow the Conditions of the Housing Code, namely Article 136, also residents of one apartment building have the right to create only one HOA.

If two or more houses are included in one land plot, or they stand on plots that border each other, then one multi-house HOA can be created.

At the same time, two HOAs cannot merge, in this case a union of partnerships or another multi-house organization is organized, which may be called a union, an association, this will be present in the name.

It is important to remember that when creating a homeowners association, the residents of the house assume responsibility for everything that will happen in the house.

In practice, HOAs are faced with the fact that it is convenient to entrust the management of HOAs, however, residents often show lack of initiative and do not want to pay membership fees.

You can manage the economy of a residential building in different ways - entrust everything to a house management company or unite in an HOA and take everything into your own hands. We understand why HOAs are created, how these organizations work and what laws regulate their activities.

What is HOA

From Article 135 of the Housing Code we learn that apartment owners themselves choose who and how will manage their house:

☝If the building has less than 50 apartments, it can be managed by the owners: the residents directly pay the bills for gas, electricity, water and other companies that provide such services. In this case, the maintenance and repair of common house territories - entrances, stairs, attics and basements remains a problem. Often, residents act according to the “my hut is on the edge” scheme: it is difficult to demand that a negligent neighbor remove garbage from the stairs, to hold Vodokanal or another organization accountable is even more difficult. Repair of the house is also in question: among 50 apartments there will always be 5-10 that will not be able to pay for this repair.

✌Also, the house can be managed by a commercial organization - DUK or a house management company. She conducts all economic affairs, monitors the quality of utilities and timely repairs. Residents of the house pay the bills issued by the DUK, which usually includes a commission for its work. Residents may require an account of where the money is being spent.

☝✌ And the third option - apartment owners unite inhomeowners association or homeowners association.

What the Housing Code says:

• HOA - non-profit organization;
• Only owners of apartments in an apartment building - a house with two or more apartments can join the HOA;
• The task of the HOA is to manage the house in such a way that it is comfortable for residents to live and use the premises.

Usually, the owners unite in the HOA in order to make the maintenance and maintenance of the house more “transparent”: the HOA allows you to clearly control the flow and expenditure of money.

What are the duties of the HOA

The HOA is obliged to conclude contracts with contractors and resource-supplying organizations and keep order in everything: from roof repair to cleaning. The Housing Code clearly spells out the responsibilities of the HOA:

👍 provide the house with hot and cold water;

👍 provide heating;

👍 provide gas;

👍 provide electricity;

👍 clean up the territory and monitor the removal of garbage;

👍 Maintain cleanliness in the entrances;

👍 monitor the number of parking spaces;

👍 Repair roads and common property in time.

The HOA should be aware of all the cases - planned water or light outages, upcoming road repairs at the entrance to the house. Also, the HOA should notify residents of all changes through announcements on the floors or by sending messages. To make it easier, the management creates a group on social networks or a chat on Whatsapp, where it informs the residents of all important information.

How the HOA works

Each owner of the apartment who voted for its creation becomes a member of the HOA. But since there are many apartments in the house, all tenants cannot participate in the work of the organization. Therefore, members of the board are elected at the general meeting: these are tenants who are members of the founders of the HOA and manage it. Board members can be elected by general vote. You can also appoint a chairman - the main responsible person of the future HOA. Any of the members of the HOA can be nominated as the chairman.

As soon as the management team is formed, the Charter is drawn up and signed. The Charter prescribes the address of the house, the list of founders, the rights and obligations of the HOA, all the important formalities related to the maintenance of the house. The charter is registered with the Federal Tax Service, a copy is certified by a notary.

To maintain order, the HOA collects contributions. The amount is set at the meeting: the law does not regulate this issue, tenants can determine the amount of contributions themselves, involve an accountant who will calculate what budget the HOA should have annually. The annual amount is "split" into monthly or quarterly payments.

At meetings, the owners themselves determine the fate of their home. Gathering together, residents decide how often to repair entrances, whether to paint the facade of the house and stairs, whether to install a barrier. HOA members do not need permission "from above" to buy new benches or equip a playground: they simply vote for it at a meeting, and then collect money and hire builders.

If something went wrong...

Charm and at the same time the main lack of HOA in that each resident becomes responsible for the house and property belonging to him. Among the activists may be legally illiterate or incompetent people whose actions can harm the house and its inhabitants.

Not all tenants pay their dues and utilities on time, which is why the HOA accumulates debts. Since this is a non-profit organization, the equity capital of the HOA is usually very small - there may simply not be enough money to pay off debts.

Often the board of the HOA shirks its duties: for example, on Monday they turn off the water for two weeks, but do not notify residents.

By law, you, like other homeowners, have the right to demand a report from the HOA: how, where and on what the money was spent, what contracts and agreements were concluded and with whom, how soon your requirements will be met. The law does not specify what this report should look like, so the chairs may simply shrug or not know how to write it.

Where to complain about the HOA

1. Directly to the board of the HOA: write an application addressed to the chairman in two copies, one to keep.

2. In "Rospotrebnadzor".

3. To the state housing inspection.

4. To the prosecutor's office.

1. An association of homeowners is a type of association of property owners, which is an association of owners of premises in an apartment building for the joint management of common property in an apartment building or, in the cases specified in paragraph 2 of Article 136 of this Code, the property of owners of premises in several apartment buildings or the property of owners several residential buildings, securing possession, use and established by law within the limits of disposing of common property in an apartment building or joint use of property owned by the owners of premises in several apartment buildings, or property owned by the owners of several residential buildings, carrying out activities to create, maintain, preserve and increase such property, provide public services to persons using in accordance with this Code, premises in these multi-apartment buildings or these residential buildings, with the exception of cases provided for in Article 157.2 of this Code, as well as for the implementation of other activities aimed at achieving the goals of managing multi-apartment buildings or for the joint use of property belonging to the owners of premises in several apartment buildings, or the property of the owners of several residential buildings.

2. The charter of an association of homeowners is adopted at a general meeting, which is held in the manner prescribed by this Code, by a majority vote of the total number of votes of the owners of premises in an apartment building. The charter of an association of homeowners must contain information about its name, including the words "partnership of homeowners", location, subject and purposes of its activities, the procedure for the emergence and termination of membership in the association of homeowners, the composition and competence of the governing bodies of the association and the procedure for making decisions by them, including on issues, decisions on which are made unanimously or by a qualified majority of votes, the composition and competence of the audit commission (competence of the auditor) of the partnership, as well as other information provided for by this Code.

(see text in previous edition)

2.1. The charter of a homeowners association may provide for the use of a system or other information system when resolving issues related to management in a homeowners association, taking into account the functions of these systems.

3. The number of members of an association of homeowners who have established an association must exceed fifty percent of the votes of the total number of votes of the owners of premises in an apartment building.

4. An association of homeowners is created without limitation of the period of activity, unless otherwise provided by the charter of the association.

5. An association of homeowners is a legal entity from the moment of its state registration. The homeowners association has a seal with its name, current and other bank accounts, and other details.

6. An association of homeowners is liable for its obligations with all its property. The association of homeowners is not liable for the obligations of the members of the association. Members of an association of homeowners are not liable for the obligations of the association.

7. In the event that the owners of premises in an apartment building choose a method of managing an apartment building by a homeowners association, within five working days from the date of the decision on state registration of the homeowners association by the body responsible for state registration legal entities, an association of homeowners shall submit to the body of state housing supervision information on the choice of a method for managing an apartment building by an association of homeowners and a notification of the commencement of activities to manage an apartment building in the manner established by the federal body executive power executing the functions of developing and implementing public policy and legal regulation in the field of housing and communal services.

(see text in previous edition)

7.1. In the event that an association of homeowners concludes an agreement on the management of an apartment building with managing organization The partnership of homeowners within five working days from the date of conclusion of the said agreement shall submit to the body of state housing supervision information on the conclusion of the said agreement in the manner established by the federal executive body responsible for the development and implementation of state policy and legal regulation in the field of housing and public utilities.

7.2. In the event of termination or termination of an agreement on the management of an apartment building concluded between a partnership of homeowners and a managing organization, an association of homeowners, within five working days from the date of termination or termination of the said agreement, information on the conclusion of an agreement on the management of an apartment building with another manager is submitted to the state housing supervision body. by an organization or a notice of the commencement by a homeowners association of activities to manage an apartment building in the manner established by the federal executive body responsible for the development and implementation of state policy and regulatory legal regulation in the field of housing and communal services.

8. If the general meeting of owners of premises in an apartment building decides to change the way the apartment building is managed by a homeowners association, within five working days from the date of this decision, the homeowners association shall submit to the state housing supervision body information on the termination of management of the apartment building by the homeowners association in the manner established by the federal executive body responsible for the development and implementation of state policy and legal regulation in the field of housing and communal services.