It is the responsibility of every citizen who uses housing and communal services to pay for them. Most citizens do not pay due attention to incoming payments and pay the receipt without checking them, and housing and communal services employees very often provide incorrect data and demand payment for services in a larger volume than they were provided. If you notice errors in the calculations, then you need to contact the housing and communal services representative with a request to recalculate, and if a refusal is received, you can complain to the prosecutor's office.
In this article we will tell you how to complain to the prosecutor’s office about housing and communal services, but before that you need to consider a sample complaint and in what cases you can send a complaint.
Multi-channel free hotline Legal advice on criminal law. Every day from 9.00 to 21.00
Moscow and region: +7 (495) 662-44-36
St. Petersburg: +7 (812) 449-43-40
How to file a complaint to the prosecutor's office regarding housing and communal services
If you were incorrectly calculated the cost for the utilities used, and the application to the housing and communal services did not give the desired result, then you can contact the prosecutor's office, but before that you need to find out the necessary information, which includes the full name of the prosecutor's office, full name. and the rank of prosecutor, as well as information about the organization providing housing and communal services.
Now let’s look at a sample complaint to the prosecutor’s office for housing and communal services. Such a complaint does not have a strictly established form, but it is subject to certain requirements, failure to comply with which may result in refusal to consider the application. The complaint against housing and communal services must include the following information:
- Full name of the authority to which the application is submitted;
- FULL NAME. the prosecutor charged with considering the complaint;
- Personal and contact details of the applicant;
- Information about the organization that issued the incorrect utility bill;
- Legal address of the organization and contact information;
- Description of the current situation;
- What rights were violated by the tenant;
- The requirements put forward and their justification from the point of view of the law;
- List of attached documentation;
- Date of document preparation and signature of the applicant.
Collective complaints are considered as a matter of priority and when filing such a complaint, the signatures and addresses of all residents who agree with the specified information must be present.
When drawing up a complaint to the prosecutor's office regarding housing and communal services, it is important to follow the rules for writing official business documents. You should avoid overly emotional presentation of what happened, and do not use obscene language or insults. Particular attention should be paid to the description of what happened. It should definitely be pointed out that attempts were made to resolve the current situation directly with the housing and communal services, but a refusal was given. It would also be a good idea to contact a qualified lawyer who will help you correctly describe the situation, provide evidence of violation of rights, and justify the requirements from a legal point of view.
There are several ways to send a complaint about housing and communal services to the prosecutor's office. You can personally visit the prosecutor's office, but more convenient ways to file a complaint are to send documents by mail or file an electronic complaint. In the last two cases, there is no need to visit the prosecutor’s office, which allows you to save personal time. The application must be sent by registered mail with subsequent notification of delivery. In the case of an electronic complaint, there is a restriction that does not allow filing a collective appeal. To file a collective complaint against housing and communal services, you must visit the prosecutor's office in person.
Sample
Sample complaint about actions and inactions of housing and communal services.doc Sample collective complaint.doc
How to write a collective appeal?
The complaint can be submitted personally, or on behalf of a group of residents and drawn up at a general meeting. A collective complaint has more weight when resolving a controversial situation and is more difficult to ignore in any instance, so it is better to enlist the support of all neighbors and seal the paper with their signatures.
Differences between a collective complaint and an individual complaint:
- A collective complaint is sealed with several signatures.
- Attached to the text is an extract from the minutes of the general meeting at which the decision was made to contact the Prosecutor's Office.
We do not recommend completing the documents yourself. Save time - contact our lawyers by phone:
8 (800) 350-14-90
In it, the situation can be described in more detail than in the complaint itself: list specific culprits, demand certain actions to eliminate the problem within a clear time frame, begin major repairs, or demand an accounting audit if there are serious suspicions of financial fraud.
List of attached documents
As we have already said, in order to substantiate the requirements, it is necessary to collect evidence of unlawful actions on the part of housing and communal services employees. The desired result can be achieved if you provide the following documents:
- Technical passport of the apartment (for all apartments when filing a collective complaint);
- Agreement for the provision of utilities;
- Confirmation of ownership of the applicant’s apartment;
- Copies of receipts confirming payment of utility services;
- A copy of the claim sent to the head of the housing and communal services as evidence of attempts made to resolve the issue;
- Housing and communal services response to the submitted claim (if any).
Sample complaint
The legislation does not establish a single form for completing an application.
But the complaint sample must contain the following information:
- name of the organization to which the document is submitted;
- personal data of the applicant;
- a brief description of violations with links to legislative acts;
- requirements;
- list of applications;
- date of compilation and signature.
An example of a complaint can be viewed here. If the complaint is collective, then the signatures of all applicants must be collected.
Download a sample complaint to the housing inspectorate for housing and communal services
Download a sample complaint to Rospotrebnadzor regarding housing and communal services
Download a sample complaint to the prosecutor's office for housing and communal services
Download a sample statement of claim to the court for housing and communal services
The following documents can be attached to the application:
- examination results;
- copies of appeals to other authorities and responses from them;
- receipts for payment of housing and communal services;
- photo and video materials.
When applying via an online form , the size of attached applications should not exceed 5 MB.
Who has the right to file a complaint against housing and communal services?
In order to consider an application to the prosecutor's office, you must adhere to certain requirements. It is worth understanding that the circle of people who have the right to file a complaint has some restrictions. All home owners whose rights have been violated can complain to housing and communal services. This right also
- Persons living in the house on a permanent basis;
- Citizens registered in the house, but temporarily residing elsewhere;
- Apartment owners living elsewhere;
- Organizations and individual entrepreneurs who own residential space.
It is worth recalling that citizens living in an apartment under a lease agreement do not have the right to file a complaint with the prosecutor’s office regarding housing and communal services, since they are not the owners of the living space.
Housing and communal services functions
- Inspection of residential buildings (including a complete inspection of the housing stock) and preparation of design and estimate documentation (regardless of the period of repair work).
- Repair and construction work on the replacement, restoration or replacement of elements of residential buildings (except for the complete replacement of stone and concrete foundations, load-bearing walls and frames).
- Modernization of residential buildings during their major renovation (redevelopment taking into account the disaggregation of multi-room apartments; installation of additional kitchens and sanitary units, expansion of living space due to auxiliary premises, improvement of insolation of residential premises, elimination of dark kitchens and entrances to apartments through kitchens with devices, if necessary, built-in or attached premises for staircases, sanitary facilities or kitchens); replacement of stove heating with central heating with the installation of boiler rooms, heat pipelines and heating points; rooftop and other autonomous heat supply sources; refurbishment of furnaces to burn gas or coal; equipment with cold and hot water supply systems, sewerage, gas supply with connection to existing main networks at a distance from the input to the connection point to the main lines up to 150 m, installation of gas ducts, water pumps, boiler rooms; complete replacement of existing central heating systems, hot and cold water supply (including the mandatory use of modernized heating devices and pipelines made of plastic, metal-plastic, etc. and a ban on the installation of steel pipes); installation of household electric stoves instead of gas stoves or kitchen fires; installation of elevators, garbage chutes, pneumatic garbage removal systems in houses with the upper floor landing level of 15 m and above; transfer of the existing power supply network to higher voltage; repair of television antennas for collective use, connection to telephone and radio broadcasting networks; installation of intercoms, electric locks, installation of automatic fire protection and smoke removal systems; automation and dispatching of elevators, heating boiler houses, heating networks, engineering equipment; improvement of courtyard areas (paving, asphalting, landscaping, installation of fences, wood sheds, equipment for children's and utility areas). Repair of roofs, facades, joints of prefabricated buildings up to 50%.
- Insulation of residential buildings (work to improve the heat-insulating properties of enclosing structures, installation of window fillings with triple glazing, installation of external vestibules).
- Replacement of intra-block utility networks.
- Installation of meters for metering thermal energy consumption for heating and hot water supply, cold and hot water consumption for the building, as well as installation of apartment meters for hot and cold water (when replacing networks).
- Reconstruction of unventilated combined roofs.
- Design supervision of design organizations for major repairs of residential buildings with full or partial replacement of floors and redevelopment.
- Technical supervision in cases where local governments and organizations have established units for technical supervision of major repairs of housing stock.
- Repair of built-in premises in buildings.
Owners must pay. How and for what exactly is decided at the general meeting.
Preparation of evidence
Particular attention should be paid to the preparation of evidence confirming the fact of violation of rights by the property owner. A list of violations by housing and communal services should be compiled in advance, and the violation should be supported by a reference to the violated legal norms. It would be a good idea to contact a lawyer who will help identify violations and indicate which documents will be evidence of violations.
Not only witness statements, but also other documents can be used as evidence. An agreement with housing and communal services and receipts with incorrect calculations will be enough to bring violators to justice. The prosecutor's office will check the data in the receipts for compliance with the internal documentation of the organization, and if violations are identified, they will demand that they be eliminated.
If the basis for the appeal is repairs and overestimation of its cost, then an estimate should be provided as evidence, which can be requested from the company that carried out the repairs. Identification of inconsistencies in the estimate and inflated cost of repairs will be grounds for initiating a criminal case.
When and what kind of answer should I expect?
The answer may come in a week or a month. There is no time clearly established by law.
It all depends on the workload of the prosecutor’s office and on the appropriateness of the information that you provided for review.
In any case, re-applying does not make any sense until a response to the first is received. The second application simply will not be considered.
The answer may be positive, and in this case an inspection of the company will be organized for violation of the rights of residents and the law.
If your arguments seem unconvincing or do not meet the requirements for conducting procedural actions, you will be denied inspections.
In the materials on our website you can also find information on how to write an application to the housing inspectorate, Rospotrebnadzor, or how to file a claim in court.
Review period
Making a decision on filing a complaint with the prosecutor's office can take quite a long time. After the application is submitted to the department, it must be registered within 3 days. Next comes the review period, which in most cases takes 15 days. If additional checks are required and there is a need to request documentation, the period can be extended to 30 days. It is the responsibility of the prosecutor's office to inform the applicant about the increase in terms and justify the reasons.
The prosecutor's office is responsible for reviewing all applications that are not submitted anonymously. If the applicant has not disclosed his or her identity, consideration will be denied. In cases where, after filing an appeal, the applicant may be in danger, it is possible to conceal the identity of the applicant.
Types of requests
The activities of many management companies (MCs) cause fair criticism from residents. At the same time, changing the organization servicing your home is not so easy. Therefore, citizens are forced to look for ways to defend their own rights.
One option is to contact the prosecutor's office. Its consideration is accompanied by a verification of the facts stated in the documents. And if they are confirmed, the prosecutorial response measures required by law are taken.
Complaints against the management company may have several subjects, because each apartment building has its own situation. However, here are some of the most common examples.
Improper performance of home maintenance responsibilities
This means several components at once. First of all, this is the provision of low-quality utility services to residents. Ensuring that the temperature in taps and radiators meets the standards is the responsibility of the management company.
Next comes the poor condition of common areas and local areas. Darkness in the corridors, peeling walls or a leaking roof - these are the most common situations faced by people living in the house.
This also includes the lack of response to justified claims of citizens. After all, according to the law, a clear deadline is given for this.
Manipulations with deductions from residents
The organization collects money from people living in an apartment building. The main object of their use is current or major repairs. The list also includes wages for service personnel.
But in practice, some management companies act in bad faith. They both embezzle money and use it for other purposes. This also includes the purchase of goods and services at inflated prices.
If a complaint is received, the prosecutor's office investigates the facts of abuse. And if they are confirmed, measures provided for by law are taken.
Problems with providing information
The management company is periodically obliged to report to residents for the results of its activities. At the request of citizens, accounting and other documentation is provided. This also includes certificates of completed work.
And if residents’ rights to information are ignored, it is also possible to write a complaint to the prosecutor’s office. In this case, an order is usually issued to eliminate the deficiencies.
It is executed within the time period specified in the document. At the same time, the organization is obliged to provide a report on the implementation of the prosecutor’s instructions.
Grounds for refusal
There is a list of grounds for refusing to consider a complaint about housing and communal services to the prosecutor's office. The complaint will remain unanswered if:
- The applicant did not disclose his identity;
- Consideration of the submitted appeal is not the responsibility of the prosecutor's office;
- Use of obscene language;
- The demands have no basis.
Do not confuse refusal to consider a complaint with cases when the application is returned to the applicant. Sometimes the prosecutor requires additional information and the application is returned to ensure that all necessary information is provided.
The application is sent to the applicant if:
- It does not reflect all the necessary information;
- There is not enough evidence to confirm the violation of citizens' rights;
- It is impossible to make out the essence of the statement due to illegible handwriting;
- There are marks on the paper or it has been damaged.
What actions to expect from the prosecutor's office
You don’t need to think that after accepting the tenant’s application, the prosecutor’s office will storm the housing office office and arrest everyone. They will begin to review the legality of actions or inactions of utility service providers.
In general, of course, a prosecutor’s audit is a very unpleasant procedure. Since it may include the seizure of various internal documents, it is permissible to seize movement on the company’s current account, and so on.
Based on the results of the inspection, prosecutors must send the applicant a response. It may state that no violations were found. Or vice versa, that an order was issued to eliminate violations within a specified period. Don’t forget about the opportunity to write a complaint to the Housing Inspectorate.
We recommend! Application to the labor inspectorate against an employer - how to complain to the labor inspectorate if the rights of an employee are violated
