Draft Federal Law On Amendments to Article 154 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation submitted by the Leningrad Region Legislative Assembly
In accordance with Paragraph 3, Article 104 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the Government of the Russian Federation has reviewed the aforementioned draft federal law.
Paragraph 1 of Article 1 of the Draft Law proposes to amend part 3 of Article 154 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation, hereinafter referred to as the Code, presupposing that the owners of residential houses and premises used for housing bear expenses which include mandatory expenses for solid and liquid household waste collection and disposal.
However, there is no mechanism for enforcing the proposed statements, since it is not clear exactly which expenses will be made mandatory. It should also be noted that modern technological solutions used in residential houses allow for decontaminating household wastes, primarily liquid waste, which excludes the need for waste collection and disposal.
Accordingly, where these technological solutions are used, the owner of a residential house is not liable to pay for waste collection and disposal throughout the whole period of the residential building’s life, while still complies with the requirements of the Federal Law No 52-FZ of 30 March 1999 On Sanitary and Epidemiological Welfare of the Populace.
In this respect, the legislative enforcement of a home owner’s liabilities regarding signing contracts on household waste collection and disposal risks an unjustified additional financial burden being laid on the owner.
In addition, the concept of “collection and disposal of solid and liquid household wastes” used in Paragraph 1, Article 1 of the draft law is neither defined, nor used in the Code, which may lead to contradictory legislative and regulatory compliance practices.
Paragraph 2 of Article 1 of the draft law proposes to expand Part 3 of Article 154 of the Code with a note stating that residential premises are understood as residential structures defined in Article 1 of the Federal Law On Gardening, Vegetable Growing and Dacha Non-Profit Associations of Residents hereinafter referred to as the Federal Law.
Meanwhile, Article 1 of the Federal Law only mentions “residential structures”, without any definition of what should be regarded as “residential structures.”
Other Russian Federation legislation does not contain a definition of “residential structures” either.
The proposed amendments contradict the existing approaches to the regulation of the issues in this sphere and need additional substantiation.