How to bring ROAs and utilities services to justice

Elena Afonina (anchorperson): We greet all our radio and television audience. The year 2012 was memorable, inter alia, in the way that the Moscow municipal authorities checked all ROAs – residence owners’ associations. The Moscow Residential Inspectorate informed that 46 per cent of the ROAs were dissolved, and 71 per cent had committed blatant offences. As a result, only three and a half thousand ROAs may remain in 2013 out of 8148 associations registered in the capital in 2010, when they boomed. And those, who has already fallen in the clutches of those fake ROAs – how do they manage to escape with minimal economic and financial losses? How do we fight fake and all other ROAs and should we fight them at all? What tricks and traps should be employed? This is what we are going to talk about. Lolita Milyavskaya, an implacable fighter against ROAs, is in our studio now. Hello, Lolita.

Lolita Milyavskaya: Hello. Thanks for having invited me.

A.: Thank you for your heroism. When trials follow one another in rapid succession – it is insufferable.

M.: There have been seven trials so far.

A.: We will talk about the perspectives and the today’s situation a bit later. Yury Pilipenko, Managing Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", Vice-President of the Federal Chamber of Advocates, Chairman of the Board of a ROA is in our studio. Hello.

Yury Pilipenko: Good afternoon.

A.: Igor Kostennikov, Lawyer of the Firm, has also come to our studio. Hello, Igor. Lolita, what is the progress of your case? Recently everyone was in joy: Lolita won another trial.

M.: I think that the lawyers will confirm that I am right. One may win a trial in our country, but is very hard to see the judgment executed. I think that I am currently at the stage that will end up in another phase of judicial proceedings. Alas, the law is that imperfect, and such is everyone’s reluctance to comply with it. There are paragraphs that contradict other paragraphs, the Residence Code also contradicts certain provisions. Unfortunately, I have not recorded a single song in a half-year, because I was taking Valocordin, drinking cognac. You see, I am not used to judicial proceedings. It affects my psychic like a blow. I have faced people who are not afraid of anything. They just don’t care. I am lucky to be an actress, thanks to the press and thanks to you for your support, but ordinary people are unable to accomplish anything in those authorities, which we filed our requests with. They lose trials, they are given fake papers to sign “I am for the ROA”. During the trial I was shown a form and told “this is your signature”. I said that it was not my signature. The court says: “You have a memory problem”. Everything is a fake, anything and everything can be forged. And then I understood that enormous money could be stolen there. I understand that you took the charge of your ROA in order to keep costs down, even the government charge of 25 roubles per square meter is sufficient to service the entire building. They say: she (I) lives in an elite residential and wants to pay the government rate. First, the building is not elite but economy-class. Keeping it in order on the government rate is not difficult. I don’t remember all the figures, but they said that it was possible to maintain the building at the government rate for 2 million roubles per year. Our ROA spends 11 million. Can you imagine such a huge difference? The people behave in a very rude manner. And mark that I have won the trials and the appeal. Two latest trials: I filed for liquidation as a legal entity and won. Of course, there will be an appeal. The building is not being maintained. The utility debts are mounting. Some people don’t pay. The ROA is in debts. They paid their own salaries, but not utilities. I am lucky as I pay for heating directly. We agreed that the residents, in such a situation of conflict, would pay their costs directly. But is very hard on health and nerves, and I see no end to that. We have collected the complete evidence, we have an attorney, Sveta, who has collected everything. We submit it all to the Investigation Committee. They do not summon us. Only once they did, and that was it. Then Sveta called them up: “Your case has miraculously been transferred to the Tagansky District Department of Internal Affairs. We have no idea how”. The Tagansky DDIA does not even have the economic crimes section. One can hardly imagine my surprise, when we found out in the Tagansky DDIA that our case was at the district police officer. He has nothing whatsoever to do with it, he has no adequate education. And then we were hinted, not in a subtle way, at a certain amount: then we will take up the case.

A.: What is your commentary? We can see that the case is gaining momentum, and there is no end to it.

P.: Lolita has my sympathy. She is absolutely right: this soaks up so much time, forces and nerves that no good person can be advised to find himself in such situation.

M.: Yura, tell them I did not lie.

P.: You did not. But I disagree with you to an extent.

M.: Do you generally disagree with the idea of the ROAs?

P.: I am for the ROAs, because in our country, in any country, there are two ways for the people to survive. Either they organize their survival themselves or the state does. Believe me, if the state starts doing it, there will be no improvement.

M.: You are wrong.

P.: The entire history of the Soviet period of development of residential utilities’ associations shows that if the residents themselves want to live a bit better than a common Khruschev-style residential or block building, they have to organize themselves. This includes voluntary monetary contributions for the purchase of flower pots, hiring concierges, installing video surveillance. The state will not pay for all that. The residents will. You are very neither lucky nor alone. I don’t think that you are the only one to be in such situation. You see, construction is booming in Moscow and in Russia. The ROAs, which were partially dissolved and partially survived, are a by-product of the construction boom. The developer created fake ROAs, and those ROAs organized the fund raising. Where those funds went, and here you are absolutely right, nobody knows. I myself became the chairman of a ROA against my will. I have much to do in my life besides being a ROA chairman.

M.: It is easier for you, you are a lawyer.

P.: But I don’t have time for that. When I saw the way my residential building was organized I understood that something should be changed, and the best way to accomplish that was to head the whole thing. We have successfully replaced the managing company, ousted and dissolved the fake ROA. Finally, we established our own ROA. I am the chairman, and I don’t receive a single copeck of remunerations. My lawyer colleagues almost daily work on the issues of the ROA for free. Still there are dissatisfied residents, who demand that we report to them, where we put their 35 roubles per square meter.

<…>

See here for the complete version.