What will happen if you do not pay for utilities

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Due to debts for housing and communal services, you will not be kicked out into the street, but you will be punished financially.

1. Penalty

In the event of force majeure, it is possible to delay the payment for housing and utility services for a short time: there are no penalties for the first month. But already from the 31st day you will be charged penalties. Financial punishment is provided for every day of delay, including the day of debt repayment. In this case, penalties cannot exceed the amount of non-payment.

From the 31st to the 90th day of non-payment, the daily surcharge will be 1/300 of the refinancing rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (it is equal to the key rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and is 6% per annum) of the debt amount, then - 1/130 of the rate.

2. Termination of the service

To deprive the debtor of heating, and in an apartment building - and cold water according to the law will not work. But you can be left without hot water, gas, electricity and sewerage after two months of non-payment.

According to the government decree, the resource supplying organization notifies the debtor of the upcoming disconnection in a way in which it will be possible to prove that the information has reached the addressee. By law, these can be:

• notification against receipt during a personal visit;
• registered letter;
• message in the payment;
• a telephone call with a recording of the conversation;
• SMS message;
• letter to e-mail;
• notification to the State Information System of Housing and Communal Services;
• an ad on the website of the resource supplying organization.

If there is no reaction from the defaulter, the company's employees after 20 days will restrict the provision of the service, for example, they will begin to provide it on an hourly basis. After another 10 days, the organization can completely shut off the necessary valves or, in the case of the sewage system, insert a plug into the pipe.

After that, the defaulter will have to pay not only the debt, but also the company's costs for disconnection.

If it is impossible to restrict the provision of the service for technical reasons, the company can immediately stop providing it.

3. Getting to know the bailiffs

If utilities have lost hope of reaching the conscience of the debtor, they can go to court.

Since 2017, the procedure for collecting debts for housing and communal services has been simplified. Previously, this was preceded by a full-fledged trial, but now the decision is made within five days and without the participation of the defaulter. The debtor will receive two notifications: that the court received documents about the debts, and the court order to collect non-payment. After receiving the notification, he has 10 days to challenge the court decision, or more if he did not manage to do so for a good reason.

If the decision is made in favor of the service provider, the Federal Bailiff Service will come into play, which has its own levers of influence on the defaulter:

• Ban on travel abroad. The debtor will not be released from the country if the amount of his obligations exceeds 30,000 rubles.
• Withholding part of the income. The bailiffs can redirect up to 50% of the income received to the debtor's accounts to resource supplying organizations. But some sources of funds cannot be punished.
• Arrest of bank accounts. At the request of the bailiffs, the bank will block all transfers of funds on your accounts.
• Arrest of property. If the debt exceeds 3,000 rubles, the defaulter's property will be described and prohibited from being disposed of. Subsequently, if the debt is not repaid, material assets (but not all) can be sold at an auction, and the money will be transferred to a resource supplying organization.

4. Denial of a loan or mortgage

After the trial, the defaulter ends up in bailiffs and anyone can get information about his debts. The bank where you apply for a loan or mortgage will be one of the first to study the website of the Federal Bailiff Service. And debts with a high degree of probability will become the basis for refusal to issue money.

5. Eviction

From municipal housing

If you live in an apartment under a social tenancy agreement, you will be asked to release it after six months of non-payment for utilities. This measure is provided for by the Housing Code of the Russian Federation. They will not leave you without housing, but you will have to make room for yourself: the municipality will provide in return an apartment with an area of 6 sq. m per person.

In reality, non-payers are not evicted so often, but there is practice. For example, this year in Ufa a court made such a decision against two tenants of municipal apartments for debts of 250,000 and 350,000 rubles.

From your home

Theoretically, for debts on a communal apartment, you can also lose the apartment that is owned. In practice, this measure is not implemented, because there are nuances in the legislation:

1. The debt for housing and communal services should be commensurate with the cost of the apartment.
2. Accommodation doesn't have to be the only one.

So if the owner has several apartments and the debt is equal to the value of one of them, then the court may decide to sell it. The property will be put up for public auction. The money from the sale will go to resource supplying organizations, and the rest, if any, will be returned to the owner.

Therefore, it is better to pay utility bills on time. Lifehacker has already written how to do this.