Today, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted draft law No. 7029 “On Amendments to Some Laws of Ukraine on Simplifying the Management of Apartment Buildings” as a whole. The BRDO team participated in finalising the draft law for the second reading.
Almost 39,000 associations of co-owners of multi-apartment buildings that have already been created clearly confirm the effectiveness of the residents’ management of their own houses as an alternative to the outdated system of ZHEKs or management companies with an extortionate policy from developers. However, until that moment, the process of creating condominiums and making decisions was too bureaucratised. In particular, the number of votes needed to make any decisions was a significant obstacle to the effective management of the house – it was unjustifiably overstated. A small number of neighbours could block important decisions for co-residents about, for example, thermal modernisation of the house, current or capital repairs of elevators, organisation of security or garbage sorting, not to mention the creation of the condominium itself.
Thanks to the adoption of draft law No. 7029, the creation and operation of apartment buildings become easier and make it possible to ensure the comfort of residents of multi-apartment buildings much more efficiently. To this end, the draft law adopted today provides for:
- reducing the requirements for the number of votes of co-owners needed to make decisions in an apartment building to 50% of residents +1 vote for making all decisions, except for disconnecting the apartment building from utility networks;
- a single, simplified approach to drawing up minutes of co-owners’ meetings;
- simplification of the mechanism of informing about holding meetings of co-owners, for example, the legalized possibility of informing using electronic means of communication;
- creation of an opportunity to participate in condominium meetings and vote remotely – using the same electronic means of communication and electronic signature;
- the upper and lower voting thresholds of condominiums are limited: for issues of election of management bodies, changes in the form of management, establishment and changes in the amount of contributions/payments, approval of the estimate – 50-67%, for all other issues – 50-75%.
Along with simplifications that make condominium operations more efficient, the draft law clarifies the rights of co-owners to get acquainted with documents of condominium meetings and provides for responsibility for the loss, destruction, or failure to provide access to condominium participants to meeting materials, contract survey letters, etc.
We welcome this decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which will enable co-owners to more effectively manage their own home. We are also sure that the norms of the draft law will help to increase the number of condominiums, which will be guaranteed to meet the needs of the co-owners of the house and will rationally use the resources of citizens.