Condominiums against housing departments

The Center for Media and Public Initiatives took the initiative to establish joint Azerbaijan Owner Associations ( condominiums ) .

According to project coordinator Samir Aliyev , condominiums will quickly and efficiently solve everyday problems of residents of apartment buildings.

In this regard, the center completed a pilot project in which it identified problems of formation of condominiums in Azerbaijan , as well as made recommendations that address the problem of formation of this new form of government for the country's housing.

According to Aliyev , the problem of implementing the idea of condominium has psychological and legal aspects. In the first case, the residents are afraid of responsibility, as well as rising costs for housing maintenance in the family budget. Because of illiteracy of the residents they do not know what benefits they will enjoy by management of houses on their own, so they continue to pay, and pay not housing departments (as in the Soviet era), but private companies for public services , without being aware what they pay for.

Association of residents is hampered by the lack of a special law on condominiums that would clearly signify their rights and responsibilities , as well as would create an enabling framework for their economic activities . "The Housing Code provides for the establishment of housing associations as non-profit organizations, which creates uncertainty because it limits economic activities of such associations . The law does not clearly define funding mechanisms of the association of residents , their choice of home control and building bilateral relations," Aliyev said .

Referring to the international experience , Aliyev noted several advantages of condominiums :

- residents feel themselves masters of not only their apartments but also their buildings,

- rent of condominium members is not subject to income tax and value added tax, as condominium is a non-profit organization,

Members of the associations themselves determine what needs to spend money on, quality control management, use of the rent, the cost of maintaining the building, grants and subsidies.

Besides condominium gets the discretion to use the non-residential , auxiliary facilities, technical equipment, local area , and receive from that income in favor of the condominium , he said.

On the project, technical support was provided by the center for registration of one condominium , and in the registration process are three more. The Information Resource Center has been created to manage apartments, where members of condominiums undergo training. For these purposes, a guidebook for condominiums has been issued in 1,000 copies.

It is noteworthy that housing departments in the former Soviet space have only remained in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Ukraine, and given the fact that Ukraine has chosen the path of the European Community, it is not difficult to imagine their fate in this country. - 15B-