Condominiums. Committee chronicles. Part 2
On the meeting of VRU Committee on construction, city planning, housing service and regional politics 12 December 2011 civic activists asserted another two principal positions in the bill No.8474 “On making amendments to some laws on condominiums”: They insisted on substitution of the term “balance keeping” by the term “building management”, and on depriving developer of the right to appoint a superintendent (executive) for a building. Unfortunately, the land issue remains open. But the most important thing – is that public received a support of the Ministry of regional development construction and housing and communal services.
Between the first and second meetings
Preliminary meeting of the Committee took place on 7 December, and on the very next day the Ministry of regional development invited following representatives of the community: leader of housing programs of the CN OPORA Tetiana Boiko, Dmytro Levytskyi (Institute of Local Development) and their colleagues to work on the bill No.8474.
During the cooperation was reached an agreement on the following provisions of the law:
- A land under the apartment building (building spot) within boundaries of house must be included to the common property of co-owners, what means that the owners can exercise a right of joint ownership of property according to the law (amendments to the Article 369 of the Civil Code and the Article 42 of the Land Code)
- 3. Land of the surrounding area, boundaries of which are determined by the regulation for the distribution of land, according to the general meeting of Condominiums, should be passed into ownership or permanent use (Articles 42, 89 of the Land Code)
- In case of demolition of the apartment house, a land on which it’s built should remain in ownership of the building co-owners (Article 42 of the Land Code)
- It’s necessary to return amendments to the Article 382 of the Civil code, which allowed co-owners to take decisions not only with 100% support.
- It’s necessary to substitute the term “balance keeping” by the term “building management” (Article 11 of the Law of Ukraine “On Condominiums”)
- It’s necessary to deprive developers of the right to appoint a building manager (executive) for a newly-built apartment house (Article 11 of the Law of Ukraine “On Condominiums”) etc
Meeting of the Committee on 12 December 2011
There were more representatives of the public on the meeting, than deputies. The meeting was attended by head of the Committee Volodymyr Rybak, his deputy Ihor Lysov, members of Committee, and a representative of the Antimonopoly Committee. The Ministry of regional development was represented by first deputy head of the Minister Oleksandr Alipov. All the others – assistants of deputies, staff members of the Committee.
Tetiana Boiko presented propositions, developed together with the Ministry of regions, concerning basic issues – land and management. “A land under the apartment building must be included to the common property of co-owners, what means that the owners can exercise a right of joint ownership of property according to the law. Land of the surrounding area can be passed into ownership or permanent use of Condominiums after certain decision is taken on a general meeting. To consolidate this position, we propose relevant amendments to the Civil and Land Codes. We propose to support depriving developer of the right to appoint a building manager at least because this issue bear no relation to Condominiums. The order of appointing builder managers for apartment houses, which haven’t established a Condominium, should be determined by the Law "On housing and communal Services," – stressed the leader of housing programs of the CN OPORA.
Active discussion and debate in the hall raised questions of amendments to the Civil code on the joint ownership of property and perfect allocation of shares, and certain necessary amendments that could be introduced through the bill No.8474. Besides that, the issue of determining boundaries of surrounding areas: on the basis of technical documentation, construction plan, by the fact, by DBN (the State building code of Ukraine) etc.; and what to do with land that can not be singled out because it must be shared by several apartment houses. The Lawyer Tetyana Montyan proposed to introduce the term "land plot of apartment building", which characterizes both the area "under the building spot," and the area of surrounding territory.
The Head of the Committee proposed everybody to work more on formulations and after ten days (21 December) finally decide on the meeting of Committee – put the bill to vote or send it to the repeated second reading.
Epilogue
Deputy head of VRU Committee on construction, city planning, housing service and regional politics Ihor Lysov, without waiting for the official end of the Committee meeting, left the room, having invited Tetiana Boiko for a meeting on Wednesday (14 December).