How legitimate is the refusal to issue a license to manage apartment buildings due to the lack of a qualification certificate for the general director of the enterprise and can we challenge it?

The introduction of legislative changes in the field of management of housing and communal services from 2020 provides for a new procedure for the work of entrepreneurs. Now all management companies must undergo a mandatory licensing procedure to obtain access to manage the housing stock entrusted to them. The state is tightening the rules of the game in this market to improve the overall level of quality of services provided and to develop tools for regulating the industry.

Important! This review highlights changes to the licensing procedure and the nuances of each stage for obtaining permission to start a business in the field of housing management.

How to obtain a license to manage apartment buildings

The procedure for obtaining a license has historically developed on the basis of legal norms. Applicants adhere to the following algorithm of actions:

1. Select an area or residential building that is not served by housing and communal services enterprises.
2. Obtain preliminary approval from residents for the design of the territory for the management and disposal of housing and communal services.
3. Register as an individual entrepreneur or legal entity.
4. Collect a registration package for submitting a candidacy.
5. Receive a qualification certificate.
6. Submit a licensing application to the competent authorities.
7. Based on the results of the review, obtain permission and begin activities.

Each stage has its own nuances.

Licensing requirements for candidates

An entrepreneur or official nominated by an enterprise submitted for licensing must meet the following criteria:

• the applicant must be a resident of the Russian Federation;
• having experience in a managerial position;
• absence of outstanding convictions for economic and other serious crimes.

There are also requirements for legal entities:

• registration in the Russian Federation;
• availability of material resources - office, equipment, special equipment, etc.;
• staffed (repair team, administrative workers, etc.);
• transparency and openness of information about economic activities;
• absence of the applicant from the list of disqualified persons;
• not activated bankruptcy or liquidation procedure of the organization.

Obtaining a qualification certificate

An entrepreneur or an authorized representative of the management company undergoes qualification testing at the licensing commission. 200 exam questions are known in advance, half of them are randomly included in the test. Time to solve – 2 hours, minimum passing level – 86% correct answers. Based on the results of testing, members of the commission may conduct an additional conversation regarding the applicant’s awareness of the current legislation in the field of housing and communal services.

Important! Failure of testing serves as a reason for refusing to issue a license to carry out business activities for managing apartment buildings.

Licensing of management companies. Another zigzag of housing and communal services reform in Russia

"Who controls the past controls the future"
The introduction of operating standards for management companies (MCs), aimed at creating civilized relations between owners and providers of housing and communal services, can lead to a redistribution of the market and a refusal to service the old housing stock.

In the Urals and Western Siberia, the process of licensing the activities of management companies (MCs) in the field of managing apartment buildings (MCDs) has been launched. Management companies must submit applications by April 1, and from May 15 they will be prohibited from working without permission. Violators face a fine of up to 500 thousand rubles or disqualification. Licensing rules (do not apply to homeowners' associations, housing cooperatives and other specialized consumer cooperatives) were approved by the federal cabinet in October last year (the law was adopted in July and came into force in September): they will help rid the population of careless market participants. According to the developers of the new requirements, only those management companies that service houses in a qualified and conscientious manner will remain afloat.

Licenses for management organizations will be issued by regional State Housing Inspections (GZHI, since 2013 they have been given powers to supervise management companies and utility officials) based on a decision of the licensing commission of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation. The special commission is created by order of the head of the region and consists of officials, representatives of specialized SROs and public associations (at least a third). At the same time, the management company must be clear before the housing inspector: if previously issued orders are not executed on time, the license will not be seen. Another reason for refusal to issue permission to manage houses is failure to comply with the requirements of the information disclosure standard, which was introduced in 2014: in Bashkiria alone, this served as a reason for the disqualification of the heads of five management companies. Companies are required to post information about financial activities, major repairs, planned and held general meetings of homeowners in open sources (on their own website, regional housing and communal services portal, if they have not created their own). The main requirement for obtaining a license is the successful passing of a qualification exam by the management of the management company: the procedure and list of questions are determined by the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation. Anyone about whom information is contained in the Register of Disqualified Persons (maintained by the Housing and Communal Services Development Fund) will not be allowed to take part in the test. Licensing requirements include the absence of an unexpunged or unexpunged conviction. Are management companies ready for the new rules of the game?

General cleaning

I remember well the times when you called the management company to sort out your bills, and in response they covered you with selective obscenities. You threaten to write a letter to the prosecutor's office or gather at the entrance to change the so-called manager, and they threaten you with turning off the cold water or gas. Now I live in a new area: the local management company manages everything - from repairing benches to organizing children's sports events. But this does not mean that I, as a homeowner, should not have the tools to change her if she decides to unreasonably rip off more money from the tenants or maintains the house carelessly. And before the law on licensing management companies, such a right existed - theoretically. To do this, it was necessary to hold a house-wide meeting. Which is practically impossible: it’s one thing to criticize in the kitchen, it’s another thing to go down into the yard, say to your face that you pay money to unprofessional workers and vote for changing the management company.

According to VTsIOM, which conducted a survey at the end of last year, half of the population expresses dissatisfaction with the Criminal Code, while no more than a quarter have experience communicating with them. I became convinced of the passivity of my neighbors 2-3 months ago, when I voted on the choice of how to accumulate funds for major home repairs. With the exception of a few apartments, no one is interested in this: instead of saving money for the renovation of our own new residential building, we will pay for the renovation of someone else’s old one.

“The Licensing Law makes it possible to quickly change the management company,” says Deputy Head of the Russian Ministry of Construction Andrei Chibis.

— You are writing a complaint to the State Housing Inspectorate. It conducts an inspection and, if violations are detected, issues instructions to eliminate them. If the Criminal Code does not correct it, she will be subject to administrative punishment. Two administrative penalties confirmed by the court - and the company will lose the right to manage a specific house. If it loses 15% of its homes, it will lose its license, and its manager will be blacklisted and will not be able to engage in this type of activity for three years. All houses will appear in a single register, and the procedure for revoking licenses for poor quality work will be as transparent as possible. No more discussions: two fines - and there is no such company in the house.

The authorities have been developing the topic of tightening control over the activities of the Criminal Code for a long time. There are many reasons - low quality of public services, lack of financial responsibility of management companies, their affiliation with local authorities, low professional level of employees.

“The management companies still think that it’s not them for the tenants, but the tenants for them,” shares an official from one of the regional Ministry of Housing and Public Utilities, on the basis of anonymity. — Abuses occur everywhere in companies that hire guest workers. A number of works are done only on paper. There are examples when management companies have led both residents and law enforcement officers by the nose, changing the name and registering another organization in the place of the organization that has fallen out of trust, but with the same founders.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation, management organizations service about 80% of housing in Russia. Andrey Chibis is convinced that a gray market for housing management has developed in the country:

— Nobody knows the exact number of companies, but up to 1 trillion rubles pass through them every year. We need to do a thorough cleaning of the UK market.

The role of the broom was supposed to be performed by a self-regulation mechanism, but it did not justify itself.

“The failure of industry self-regulation is partly explained by the actions of the authorities,” says Dmitry Gordeev, leading legal adviser at the Institute of Urban Economics Foundation. “Instead of reducing pressure from the state, it was increased. The functions of the Housing Housing Inspectorate were strengthened and municipal housing control was introduced. Why does a management company need to participate in an SRO? They were not interested in increasing the structures to which they should report. In addition, when concluding an agreement, recipients of services are rarely interested in whether the company is a member of an SRO.

“SRO management companies exist only on paper,” echo the experts of the NP Housing and Communal Services Control.

“They don’t do any real work, and among residents there is indifference to resolving issues or activity that is limited to writing complaints. Therefore, the state took a necessary measure - licensing the activities of managing apartment buildings. In many countries, it is the control of the professional community, and not the authorities, that comes first. There is a reputation there that is valued. Because it is the reputation of the management organization that the owner pays attention to when entrusting his property.

The choice in favor of licensing was made despite experts' concerns that such a format could create fertile ground for corruption. In fact, a licensing commission of 10 to 20 people will decide who will remain on the regional market worth billions of rubles.

According to market participants, half of the management companies in one way or another have a share of city administrations:

— These are mainly housing and communal services and housing offices that manage the old fund; their license will not be revoked. But commercial management companies, including those managing more profitable new buildings, will face the risk of closure. City authorities received a tool for redistribution in the market. Former municipal management companies will be consolidated.

“They will keep their own people, but push out the strangers: their own organization will not lose its license.” They will never allow this to happen, they will help. Licensing will have a negative impact on competition, confirms Galina Khovanskaya, head of the State Duma Committee on Housing Policy and Housing and Public Utilities.

The Ministry of Construction admits that the management company has connections with the authorities, but they believe in the impartiality of the commissions. In particular, Andrei Chibis is convinced that corruption risks are minimized:

— Firstly, licensing commissions must consist of at least a third of representatives of public, that is, independent organizations. Secondly, in the event of an illegal decision, each member of the commission pays an administrative fine - several tens of thousands of rubles. Thirdly, the owners are given the right to veto the change of the management company. We will not allow lobbying of any affiliated management companies. In general, the country is ready for the licensing procedure.

In some Russian regions, the Criminal Code complained about the opacity of the procedure for forming commissions and the predominance of government representatives in them. And the National Association of Self-Regulatory Organizations initiated an appeal to the Ministry of Construction with a request to revise the order on the procedure for forming commissions and increase the share of public activists in them to 50%. In the Urals, such proposals were made only in the Kama region. There, the special commission consists of 11 people: four officials, including two representatives of the State Property Committee, a regional deputy, representatives of the office of the Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs in the Perm Territory and the regional Council of Municipal Entities. There are only four social activists and market representatives, and they, according to local management companies, are loyal to the regional authorities. Dissatisfaction with the composition of the commission was expressed by members of several non-profit partnerships representing the interests of management organizations (for example, NP “Perm Association of Management Companies”), which were refused to accept applications due to late submission of documents. There are other examples: in the Sverdlovsk region, the commission included all 14 applicants, public activists and SRO representatives, almost the majority.

Take a ticket

The first qualifying exams for heads of management companies took place in most regions. Testing for knowledge of issues related to the management of housing stock - from housing legislation to technical regulations (see “Unified State Exam for Public Utility Workers”) is carried out using computer testing. An individual set of tests consists of one hundred questions: the certificate will be given to the one who correctly answers 86 of them in two hours. For some, 15 minutes is enough: the State Housing Institution of Udmurtia cites the example of the head of the EcoDom Management Company (Glazov), Marina Taranova. On January 12, she answered all 100 questions correctly in 14 minutes. In total, more than 30 republican Criminal Codes took the exam that day, only two failed.

Chairman of the State Committee of the Republic of Belarus for Housing and Construction Supervision Ildar Zamaletdinov called on the Criminal Code “not to rely on chance”:

- It is impossible to cheat on an exam. Before the test, test participants are instructed not to use phones, smartphones, computers, technical literature, or any notes. A rotation of 200 questions is programmed, three possible answers change each time, the correct answer can appear on the screen under a different letter, which eliminates the possibility of using cheat sheets. By mid-March, all management companies will be invited to a qualification exam according to the schedule.

“Passing the qualification exam is one of the advantages of the licensing procedure,” said the Perm Association of Management Companies. — Beginners who still have little understanding of housing and communal services will have to learn the basics of housing legislation and the technical features of managing apartment buildings.

“The exam is followed by obtaining a certificate and the license itself,” they say in the regional State Housing Institutions. — You will have to pay 30 thousand rubles for a license. In this case, the document will be valid precisely in the territory in which it was issued, and each license will be accompanied by a list of apartment buildings managed by the organization. The qualification certificate is issued for a period of five years. If, before April 1, the management company did not apply to the State Housing Property Department with an application for a license or was refused to issue it, the authorities are obliged to notify the owners of the premises in the apartment building about this. Then local authorities must organize a meeting of owners to decide on the choice of management method, and if such a decision is not made, the authorities are obliged to announce and hold a competition for the selection of management companies.

The head of the Tyumen Association of Management Companies, Vladimir Vasiliev, is convinced that everyone will pass the test, but not everyone will be able to comply with the licensing requirements.

“Indeed, you can prepare for the exams, but the management company may receive claims regarding the disclosure of information,” says Svetlana Razvorotneva, executive director of the NP Housing and Public Utilities Control. “It is not so easy to post all the necessary information about houses on specialized websites.” For example, information about the technical condition of houses. This may be due not only to the negligence of the management company, but also to the fact that the previous company did not transfer all the documentation. But the BTI has now been liquidated, and there is nowhere to take it from. The rules for revoking a license are quite strict - two violations in the house are enough.

Additional obstacles to the Criminal Code may be introduced by the authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. In the Perm Territory, for example, the governor instructed the government that all management companies that allowed misuse of funds from the population be denied access to the market. In other regions, there are examples of involving supervisory authorities in inspections of management companies. Thus, in the Sverdlovsk region, the prosecutor's office identified about 300 violations in the activities of the Criminal Code: 275 statements of claim were sent to the courts, over 60 cases of administrative offense were initiated.

“We don’t want to scare or give anyone nightmares,” explains Kirill Minulin, head of the housing and construction supervision service of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. — Our task is to establish a dialogue between the owners and the management company and remove fly-by-night companies.

It will be difficult to do this: even one-day students will be able to pass the exam and post information on the Internet. At the same time, the requirements say nothing about the experience and quality of work of the management company.

“Of course, there is no single recipe for all diseases,” says Alexey Rossolov, head of the State Housing Institute of the Sverdlovsk Region. — There are loopholes in the law, some of them are already visible.

Who controls the past controls the future

The Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation assumes that 10-15% of Russian management companies will leave the market. The department believes that there is no need to be afraid of this: “The business is profitable, someone will leave, others more responsible will come.”

“What you really need to be afraid of is not the reduction of management companies, but their massive abandonment of housing stock built in the 40s and 50s,” experts warn. “It may actually be possible to keep it in a condition that is safe for life, but it is impossible to bring it into compliance with all the requirements.” If licenses for such houses begin to be revoked, the housing stock will be dumped. Management companies will abandon problematic properties as unprofitable. Many companies will prefer reducing the volume of the serviced fund to the prospect of being left without work at all.

— Will management organizations take on houses that are in dire need of major repairs? No, of course not,” says Galina Khovanskaya. “Like hell they will distance themselves from these houses.” Who will bear this problem? To municipalities. That is, on their budgets, which today are already 98% subsidized.

“We won’t have abandoned houses.” They will be dealt with by municipal or state management companies, the Ministry of Construction confirms. — They will cope with the problematic housing stock.

“We will again return to municipal unitary enterprises, whose efficiency is extremely low, they are not interested in competition,” experts lament. “The result is something completely different from what we expected at the first stage.”

The market is not ready for self-regulation, homeowners are not able to control management organizations, and the state will rely on strict subordination and vertical control. To prevent licensing from destroying small businesses in the housing and communal services sector and making the industry unattractive for private investors, its mechanism needs to be improved. Two violations to remove a management company from the market is too much.

Source: //Expert-Ural, January 19, 2015

Documents provided for licensing

Along with the application for a license, an entrepreneur or organization must submit a package of documents:

• certificate of state registration of legal entity. faces;
• TIN;
• statutory documents of the enterprise;
• fresh extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities;
• decision of the founders on the organization of the enterprise;
• order on the appointment of a manager or director;
• documents confirming the availability of non-residential premises for the location of the physical address of the management company (certificate of ownership or lease agreement);
• copies of diplomas and work records of employees;
• confirmation of the availability of sufficient material support - accompanying documentation for inventory, equipment, etc.;
• manager's qualification certificate.

Copies must first be notarized. Licensing authorities are not authorized to request additional documents beyond the established list; they receive information independently from various authorities.

Licensing Process

To successfully pass licensing for the management of apartment buildings, the initiator of the procedure must submit the correct documentation set to the regulatory authority. Applications are accepted by the territorial department of the state housing supervision of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation. Possible application options:

• personally or through an authorized representative under a notarized power of attorney;
• by postal means of communication, by registered mail with acknowledgment of delivery;
• through the public services portal using an electronic digital signature.

Goszhilnadzor checks the accuracy of the information provided, sends requests to various authorities - the Federal Tax Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Treasury, etc. Based on the results of the audit, it makes a preliminary decision and transfers the materials to the licensing commission for final consideration and decision-making. The commission provides an opinion which is the basis for refusing or issuing a license to the applicant. The review procedure takes no more than 30 days; another 2 weeks are provided for the execution and issuance of the document.

Important! Information about a person who has successfully completed the procedure is entered into the register of licenses of housing and communal services management companies. The grounds for refusal are failure to comply with the requirements of the procedure, lack of a qualification certificate, disqualification, concealment of information, etc.

The license is issued for an unlimited period, but it can be revoked if the management company ceases to meet the requirements or commits a gross violation of the law in the course of managing the housing stock.

Take a trial exam - housing and communal services test

You can make the task of passing the certification exam a little easier with the help of a free simulator.

The system will help you pass a training qualification test for housing and communal services employees and get acquainted with the correct answers. The applicant has the right to choose one of two modes: training or exam. In the first case, correct solutions are provided for each task with detailed information and reference to legislative acts. In the second case, everyone will be able to try their hand in conditions that are as close as possible to the real exam.

Cases when a license is not required

According to the Housing Code of the Russian Federation, there are exceptions to the general rule of compulsory licensing. In cases where the disposal of the housing stock of an apartment building is placed under the jurisdiction of the HOA or housing cooperative, there is no need to go through the procedure with the state housing supervision.

The new work procedure made a significant contribution to establishing order in the functioning of management organizations in the housing and communal services sector. Licensed companies that value their right to continue operating are forced to comply with the procedure established by regulations and ensure the proper level of quality of services provided.

Questions for the housing and communal services licensing exam

A list of 200 questions with answer options was published in the appendix to Order 659 of the Russian Ministry of Construction and covers housing and urban planning legislation, labor and civil legal norms, energy, issues of utilities, housing repairs, regulations, management of apartment buildings, etc.

Questions are freely available on the Internet; moreover, many sites offer free simulators for testing knowledge in exam mode or for all questions.

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