Who should maintain abandoned water supply networks? Legal regime of ownerless sections of heating networks: problems and possible solutions

Ownerless networks of engineering support ( engineering networks, systems or communications), necessary for heat, gas, electricity, water supply, sewerage and ventilation, pose a certain problem for management organizations, since it is not always clear who is obliged to maintain them and with what funds.

Today we will talk about the distribution of duties and responsibilities for maintaining such networks.

Thermal utility network

Gas supply networks

Since currently the current legislation does not establish standards for the maintenance of ownerless gas supply engineering networks, then, taking into account the obligation of the RSO to supply gas of proper quality, it is possible to apply the position according to which the maintenance of such engineering networks is carried out by persons operating ownerless facilities for the purposes of entrepreneurial activity.

Arbitrage practice

The fact that the problem of ownerless utility networks is always relevant is evidenced by abundant judicial practice.

A prosecutor's audit related to the issue of ownerlessness of utility networks revealed violations of the requirements of legislation in the housing and communal services sector in the activities of the local government body: it did not take measures to register the heating network as an ownerless real estate object. Therefore, the court decided to impose on the local government body the obligation to determine the distribution network and apply to the registration authority to register the ownerless utility network (Appeal ruling of the Astrakhan Regional Court dated September 2, 2015 in case No. 33-3064/2015).

The court received a claim from the HOA to declare illegal the inaction of the city administration, which refused to recognize the right of municipal ownership to an ownerless thermal utility network. The HOA argued that since this utility network is located beyond the border of intra-house networks and outside the land plot occupied by the apartment building, then it cannot be considered common property. The court did not satisfy the request, since the pipeline networks are in the possession and use of the HOA and are not considered ownerless property (Resolution of the Arbitration Court of the Volga-Vyatka District dated April 26, 2016 N F01-1295/2016 in case N A43-7539/2015).

RSO demanded through the court that the local government body register the ownerless thermal engineering network. RSO believed that transit sections of utility networks that run in the basements of residential buildings are ownerless property, therefore the local government body is obliged to take them into account. The court satisfied RSO's demand, since the disputed sections of pipelines were not transferred to it along with utility networks, and there is no information in the state register about the rights to the disputed sections of pipelines. That is why the court considered the disputed sections of pipelines ownerless (Resolution of the Arbitration Court of the Ural District dated January 25, 2016 N F09-10599/15 in case N A50-5612/2015).

If you have any questions, you can always contact us for advice. We also help management companies comply 731 RF PP on the Information Disclosure Standard(filling out the portal Housing and communal services reform, website of the Criminal Code, information stands) and Federal Law No. 209 (). We are always happy to help you!

Today we will talk about the distribution of duties and responsibilities for maintaining such networks.

Thermal utility network

Gas supply networks

Since currently the current legislation does not establish standards for the maintenance of ownerless gas supply engineering networks, then, taking into account the obligation of the RSO to supply gas of proper quality, it is possible to apply the position according to which the maintenance of such engineering networks is carried out by persons operating ownerless facilities for the purposes of entrepreneurial activity.

Arbitrage practice

The fact that the problem of ownerless utility networks is always relevant is evidenced by abundant judicial practice.

A prosecutor's audit related to the issue of ownerlessness of utility networks revealed violations of the requirements of legislation in the housing and communal services sector in the activities of the local government body: it did not take measures to register the heating network as an ownerless real estate object. Therefore, the court decided to impose on the local government body the obligation to determine the distribution network and apply to the registration authority to register the ownerless utility network (Appeal ruling of the Astrakhan Regional Court dated September 2, 2015 in case No. 33-3064/2015).

The court received a claim from the HOA to declare illegal the inaction of the city administration, which refused to recognize the right of municipal ownership to an ownerless thermal utility network. The HOA argued that since this utility network is located beyond the border of intra-house networks and outside the land plot occupied by the apartment building, then it cannot be considered common property. The court did not satisfy the request, since the pipeline networks are in the possession and use of the HOA and are not considered ownerless property (Resolution of the Arbitration Court of the Volga-Vyatka District dated April 26, 2016 N F01-1295/2016 in case N A43-7539/2015).

RSO demanded through the court that the local government body register the ownerless thermal engineering network. RSO believed that transit sections of utility networks that run in the basements of residential buildings are ownerless property, therefore the local government body is obliged to take them into account. The court satisfied RSO's demand, since the disputed sections of pipelines were not transferred to it along with utility networks, and there is no information in the state register about the rights to the disputed sections of pipelines. That is why the court considered the disputed sections of pipelines ownerless (Resolution of the Arbitration Court of the Ural District dated January 25, 2016 N F09-10599/15 in case N A50-5612/2015).

If you have any questions, you can always contact us for advice. We also help management companies comply 731 RF PP on the Information Disclosure Standard(filling out the portal Housing and communal services reform, website of the Criminal Code, information stands) and Federal Law No. 209 ().

How long can property that is capable of generating real profit remain without an owner? If we talk about utility networks, then for decades. Moreover, the pipes do not just lie there and do not work financially - they wear out, fail and require repair.

About half of the utility accidents in Voronezh occur on ownerless networks. And no one today can say for sure what their extent is: city hall specialists regularly identify more and more abandoned objects.

Unclaimed kilometers

Which networks can be considered ownerless? According to the deputy head of the property and land relations department of the city district administration, Tina Kravchenko, first of all, these are networks of state enterprises that were transformed into joint-stock companies in the 90s of the twentieth century. They were not at one time entered into the registers of federal and state property of the Voronezh region and, accordingly, were not transferred in the prescribed manner to municipal ownership. In addition, this also includes networks of enterprises declared bankrupt and networks of the private residential sector. This is if we talk about pipelines from the Soviet era.

However, among the ownerless networks there are also quite new ones, laid only a few years ago. These are infrastructure facilities for newly built housing facilities, not formalized and not transferred to operating organizations by the construction customers.

The presence of such networks was a constant headache for the Voronezh mayor’s office, which regularly needed to find budgetary funds to eliminate accidents on them. Life-supporting municipal enterprises also had to invest in repairs, which, even with all their desire, could not put them on their balance sheets. Until 2004, the acceptance of these objects was not formalized according to the “ownerless” procedure, but as property of the treasury of the Russian Federation, which made it possible to receive at least partial financial support from the federal budget. But it did not allow registering the right of municipal ownership of them. As a result, it is impossible for operating enterprises to accept them.

In 2004, the regulatory framework for accepting such facilities onto the balance sheet of resource supply organizations changed, but the process still proceeded extremely slowly. And only in 2009, in connection with the entry into force of the Federal Law “On Energy Saving...”, this work in Voronezh intensified.

The peak years in this regard were 2011-2012, when the regional department of Rosreestr registered approximately 2.5 thousand objects with a total length of 276.5 km. At the present time, says Tina Kravchenko, work on registering municipal property rights through the procedure of recognizing them as ownerless is being carried out on 3,658 identified engineering infrastructure objects with a total network length of 492.9 thousand meters.

Money in the morning, pipes in the evening

But it is not enough to recognize ownerless networks as such and accept them as municipal property. They still need to be handed over to the appropriate operating organization. And if, for example, practically no such questions arise regarding cold water supply networks, then to whom to transfer the heating and hot water supply networks is a rather serious question due to the large number of resource suppliers represented on the Voronezh utility market.

A year ago, at a meeting between Governor Alexey Gordeev and the head of Voronezh Heat Grid Company LLC (a subsidiary of JSC Quadra) Nikolai Nazarov, an agreement was reached that it was Voronezh TSK that would take on these obligations, and the region would find an opportunity to compensate for the costs of their implementation for a resource supply organization.

However, the problem is aggravated by the fact that resource supplying organizations are not particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of taking these facilities on their balance sheet, because the structures responsible for formulating tariff policy are in no hurry to include amounts for their servicing in the tariff for enterprises.

“The law clearly states that these funds must be taken into account in the tariff,” the mayor explained during one of the meetings at the mayor’s office. – If there are any problems in interaction with the regional tariff department, then I will take upon myself the solution to this problem.

This, by the way, was not the first conflict in the relationship between the city administration and Voronezh TSK LLC. Thus, back in April of this year, Nikolai Nazarov argued that the solution to the problem of ownerless networks could be consolidated investments by the company and city authorities to renew no-one’s property. This idea was voiced immediately after the Arbitration Court, following a claim by the mayor’s office, ordered the structure of JSC “Quadra - Power Generation” to take over 646 ownerless inputs to the heating system for maintenance before they are registered as city property.

At that time, ownerless bushings became a real scourge of the Voronezh communal services. Despite the fact that the responsibility for their maintenance did not fall on the shoulders of management companies and homeowners associations, it was the operating organizations that the controlling structures required to carry out their repairs. No repairs - no certificates of readiness of houses for winter. This, in turn, opened up wide scope for rampant corruption: as a result, passports were signed, bushings were not repaired, and during cold weather accidents regularly occurred on them.

And it is still impossible to say that the problem has been solved today. Therefore, the transfer of networks to the balance sheet of specialized organizations, they say in the mayor’s office, needs to be accelerated. But compiling technical documentation for ownerless objects costs money, which is not always possible to find.

“Such costs will definitely be compensated,” Igor Cherenkov, head of the city housing and communal services department, is convinced. “We have to spend significantly more money on eliminating accidents that occur on these networks. Plus, our emergency service can no longer always cope with emerging problems promptly. It needs to be strengthened, and this is also a matter of more than one day.

New, but ownerless

But the problem lies not only in money, or rather, in a limited amount of it. This work is complicated, for example, by internal instructions existing in the Rosreestr administration for the Voronezh region.

“For example, the department accepts no more than five cases per day from one applicant,” explains Tina Kravchenko. “This means that the transfer of only currently prepared documents for 296 ownerless objects will take more than three months. In addition, Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated September 17, 2003 No. 580 states that after registering objects, the applicant is sent an extract from the Unified State Register of Rights. In fact, we receive it only after sending requests to the Rosreestr department, which also slows down the process of transferring these objects for maintenance to specialized organizations.

Plus, says the deputy head of the property and land relations department, the emergence of more and more ownerless network sites due to the commissioning of new housing construction projects is becoming a serious problem. Developers, at the expense of residents, lay networks that they do not then hand over to resource supply organizations for maintenance. Management companies are responsible only for the networks inside the house. So it turns out that tens and hundreds of meters of pipelines, as soon as they appear, immediately receive the status of ownerless.

“In our opinion, all engineering infrastructure facilities should be reflected in the commissioning permit,” Tina Kravchenko is sure. – Developers need to provide cadastral passports for them, as well as identify operating organizations that will carry out maintenance of utility networks and who must sign documents confirming the compliance of the constructed capital construction facility with technical conditions. All this is provided for in subclause 7, clause 3, article 55 of the Town Planning Code of the Russian Federation.

NUMBERS

The largest share of ownerless networks in Voronezh are heating and hot water supply networks. Of the 3,658 objects with a total length of 492.9 thousand linear meters, they account for 2,345 (178.3 thousand linear meters). The water supply and sewerage networks, although in total there are less than 500 objects, have a total length of almost 220 thousand line meters.

Today, Russian regions are faced with the acute issue of ownerless electrical networks. This is a very serious problem both for consumers and for the network companies to which these networks are connected.

In accordance with paragraph 1 of Art. 225 of the Civil Code, ownerless is a thing that does not have an owner or the owner of which is unknown, or, unless otherwise provided by law, the owner of which has renounced the right of ownership. In Russia there are a lot of unaccounted for and simply abandoned electrical networks. They work at the limit of their capabilities, and there is no one to repair and maintain these substations. Unattended networks are a source of accidents, one of the reasons for the decline in the quality of power supply and serious losses of electricity. According to experts, to solve the problem, comprehensive actions will be required at both the federal and regional levels.

In Yakutia, a practice has developed according to which energy facilities of the network complex (power lines, substations), built over the years by a variety of owners, turn into “nobody’s”. The vector towards abandoning non-core activities, which was adopted in our country in the new millennium, forced business and many departmental structures to simply abandon them without supervision. The result is accelerated wear, dilapidation and emergency condition of these power facilities, which leads to a decrease in the reliability of power supply and outages.

In 1991, owners were assigned to all electrical network facilities. At the same time, some of these objects were not properly registered and subsequently turned out to be ownerless.

There are still ownerless people today. There are often cases when developer enterprises do not properly formalize the transfer of the electrical grid along with the commissioned capital construction project, although the networks are included in its cost and must also be transferred to the customer.

There is also a deliberate abandonment of property. Especially when networks fall into disrepair due to the fact that they were not serviced or repaired in a timely manner. To restore operability, reconstruction is sometimes required, comparable in cost to the construction of a new power supply complex.

Responsibility for the proper operation of electric grid facilities rests entirely with the law on the owners, regardless of the degree of formalization of rights to the property.

An energy company cannot easily accept on its balance sheet everything that is not good for negligent owners. According to the rules, the object must be in an active, operational state. And the owners of this property, as a rule, do not have the funds to bring it back to normal. Especially when it comes to municipal property.

The law clearly defines the procedure for transferring objects without an owner. The local government body, when identifying a potential ownerless property, is obliged to check for the presence of owners. In order for an object to receive the official ownerless status, it is necessary to go through the procedure for registration with Rosreestr, and only after that the possibility of transferring it into operation to a guaranteeing supplier or network organization is considered.

Accounting, timely competent maintenance of even the most low-power electrical grid facilities, this means a stable, reliable power supply, and no costs associated with its interruptions. And, first of all, the safety of the population, our children. Cases of electrical injuries, unfortunately, are constantly being recorded. And a significant part is on abandoned objects for which no one is responsible. On the vast territory of our republic, with its seasonal transport pattern and hard-to-reach settlements in almost every region, you cannot rely on chance. It is necessary to clearly define the area of ​​responsibility. And carry it from start to finish. In law.

Since September 2016, in accordance with Order No. 1194r dated July 18, 2016 “On identifying the operating organization of ownerless real estate in the territory of the urban district “city of Yakutsk”, LLC “Servisenergosbyt+” has assumed obligations for emergency cover of ownerless real estate, consisting of 73 properties.

S.V. Matiyashchuk,
Candidate of Legal Sciences,
Associate Professor, Department of Civil Law, SibUPK

The privatization conflicts of the 90s gave rise to many problems, one of which was the emergence of a significant number of sections of heat supply networks that did not have an owner. Issues related to ownerless sections of heating networks undoubtedly have a very important practical significance, since the lack of clear legal regulation in the field of heat supply does not contribute to the formation of a uniform law enforcement practice aimed at protecting the interests of the weaker side of these relations, i.e. consumers of thermal energy, as well as for the prompt elimination of the causes and conditions that contribute to the existence of ownerless sections of heating mains. Candidate of Legal Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Civil Law of the SibUPK S.V. Matiyashchuk analyzes the norms of current legislation and the practice of resolving disputes related to the operation of ownerless sections of heating networks.

According to Article 225 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, a thing is recognized as ownerless if it does not have an owner or cannot be determined (the owner is unknown), or the owner has renounced ownership of it.
As statistics show, in populated areas of our country there are a huge number of ownerless sections of heating networks. What are the reasons for this situation? The main ones, without a doubt, are hasty and ill-considered actions to privatize state property in the early 90s of the last century.

Thus, the privatization of state and municipal enterprises was carried out in accordance with the Law of the Russian Federation of July 3, 1991 N 1531-1 “On the privatization of state and municipal enterprises in the Russian Federation” and Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of July 1, 1992 N 721 “On organizational measures on the transformation of state-owned enterprises into joint-stock companies." The plans for the privatization of enterprises everywhere included engineering infrastructure facilities, including heating networks, as not subject to privatization. Thus, a paradoxical situation arose: on the one hand, the newly created enterprises did not acquire ownership of these objects, and on the other hand, they acted as their balance holders, which inevitably led to negative consequences: the new owners did not maintain and repair heating networks and refused to enter into contracts with heat supply contracts by consumers, etc.

Probably in connection with this resolution of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation of December 27, 1991 N 3020-1 “On the division of state property in the Russian Federation into federal property, state property of republics within the Russian Federation, territories, regions, autonomous regions, autonomous districts, cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg and municipal property" provisions were established according to which engineering infrastructure facilities, regardless of whose balance sheet they are located, are transferred to the municipal property of cities (except for cities of regional subordination) and districts (except for districts in cities) . In addition, in order to free enterprises from functions unusual for them in maintaining public utility facilities, the Government of the Russian Federation Decree No. 235 dated March 7, 1995 “On the procedure for transferring federal property of social, cultural and communal facilities to the state ownership of constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipal property" it was established that federally owned public utility facilities that are managed by enterprises and are not included in the privatized property of enterprises, including boiler houses and heating networks, are subject to transfer to municipal ownership.

As for the legislation in force today, by virtue of paragraphs 1 and 2 of Art. 30 of the Federal Law of December 21, 2001 N 178-FZ “On the privatization of state and municipal property”, when privatizing a unitary enterprise as part of the property complex of this enterprise, housing infrastructure facilities and energy facilities intended to serve the residents of the corresponding settlement cannot be privatized. The named public utility facilities that are not included in the property complex of a unitary enterprise subject to privatization are subject to transfer to municipal ownership.

In accordance with the law, boiler houses, heating points and networks cannot be privatized, this is municipal property, therefore, engineering infrastructure objects are objects of municipal property directly by virtue of the direct instructions of the law. In addition, by virtue of paragraph 3 of Art. 225 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, ownerless real estate, which includes heating networks, can be recognized in the prescribed manner as municipal property. But despite this, as practice shows, for many years local governments everywhere have not taken any action, and sometimes even create obstacles to transfer infrastructure facilities, in particular heating networks, to municipal ownership. Let's look at one of many examples.

The joint stock company (hereinafter referred to as the Plaintiff) filed a lawsuit with the local government body (hereinafter referred to as the Defendant) demanding that the Defendant's inaction in not accepting the heating main be declared illegal and that the Defendant be obliged to accept this city's engineering infrastructure facility.

As can be seen from the case materials, the Plaintiff, justifying his claims against the Defendant, referred to the fact that in 1992 the privatization of a state-owned enterprise began through its transformation into a joint-stock company. From the appendix to the privatization plan it follows that among the objects not included in the authorized capital of the Plaintiff there is a heating main. Guided by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of March 7, 1995 N 235 “On the procedure for transferring objects of social, cultural and public utility purposes of federal property into state ownership of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipal property,” the Plaintiff turned to the Defendant with a demand to accept the disputed property into municipal ownership. object. However, the Respondent took no action.

The Defendant did not admit the application, citing the fact that the Plaintiff did not prove the fact that the disputed section of the heating main was included in the plan for the privatization of state property.
Based on the evidence available in the case, the court of first instance came to the conclusion: the inaction of the Defendant, expressed in evasion to accept the disputed heating main into municipal ownership, violated the rights and legitimate interests of the Plaintiff as a person who was unreasonably entrusted with the responsibility for maintaining municipal heating networks, in connection with than the Defendant’s inaction to accept the disputed heating main should be declared illegal.

Under such circumstances, the arbitration court satisfied the Claimant's stated demands. By the decision of the Fifth Arbitration Court of Appeal dated October 29, 2008, the decision was left unchanged *(1).

The question naturally arises: for what purpose do local governments prevent the transfer of engineering infrastructure objects to municipal ownership? The reason is due to well-known external circumstances and is associated mainly with the discrepancy between the scope of powers of local self-government bodies and the material and financial resources at their disposal. They simply do not have enough funds to maintain engineering infrastructure facilities, including heating networks, and, as a result, it is much more profitable to recognize as ownerless networks abandoned by bankrupt balance holders or illegally included in the privatization plan. For the same reason, in many settlements of our country, local governments are forced to lease heating networks to commercial organizations, quite often referred to in practice as network companies, which are obliged to provide consumers with services for the transfer of thermal energy by maintaining the networks in good condition, i.e. operate and repair them. In turn, the tariff for thermal energy includes such a component as the costs of transmitting energy through heating networks, and accordingly, operating costs are reimbursed to the specified network organizations at the expense of consumers. At the same time, when controversial situations arise related to ownerless sections of heating networks, both network companies and local governments try to actually distance themselves from resolving such issues.

The problem is that such sections of heating networks remain of economic importance, since many consumers of thermal energy are connected to them. And as a result, in such a situation, participants in the complex heat supply process are forced to use ownerless sections of heating mains in their activities, and this undoubtedly serves as an obstacle to ensuring a reliable and uninterrupted supply of thermal energy to consumers. The following questions can serve as confirmation: who will be responsible for heat losses in ownerless networks; who will provide maintenance of these networks; with whom should a heat supply agreement be concluded when transferring energy through ownerless sections of heating mains and many others. Their failure to resolve leads to serious complications in law enforcement, and above all, judicial practice.
As already noted, the legislator does not establish any special procedure for ensuring maintenance of ownerless sections of heating networks. At the same time, law enforcement practice has developed two main options for solving the problem of servicing ownerless networks, which depend on who acts as the consumer.

The first option occurs when thermal energy is consumed for domestic needs, and the second - for other needs not related to domestic consumption.
In the first option, as a rule, the courts defend the interests of the economically weaker party in these relations, i.e. household consumers. The conclusion drawn can be clearly illustrated by an example from judicial arbitration practice.
The housing construction cooperative (hereinafter referred to as the Plaintiff) filed a lawsuit against the network company (hereinafter referred to as the Defendant) with a demand to force the obligated party to enter into a heat supply agreement in the wording proposed by the Plaintiff. Among other things, the Plaintiff insisted on including the following condition in the contract: the boundary of operational liability is the point of connection of the collective (common building) metering device with the heating network, which is part of the apartment building managed by the Plaintiff.

The Defendant did not agree with the claim, citing the fact that if the balance holder of the section of the heating main running from the thermal chamber used by the Defendant to the wall of the apartment building is not identified, there is generally no legal basis for concluding a heat supply agreement on any terms. In addition, based on the allegation that the specified section of the networks was mismanaged, the Defendant believed that it was unlawful to impose on him the obligation to ensure uninterrupted supply of thermal energy to the consumer at the border of the balance sheet.

The court of first instance satisfied the Plaintiff's claims regarding the resolution of disagreements regarding the establishment of the boundaries of operational responsibility under the heat supply agreement. By the decision of the Federal Arbitration Court of the Volga-Vyatka District of September 23, 2008, the decision was left unchanged.

In making its decisions, the court proceeded from the following. A lease agreement for heating networks was concluded between the Defendant and the local government body, under the terms of which the Defendant is obliged to carry out repairs and operate these facilities and enter into appropriate agreements with consumers of thermal energy. On the day the dispute was considered in court, the local government authorities decided to lease the disputed ownerless section of the heating networks to the Defendant. Under such circumstances, the court believes that the Defendant is obliged to ensure a reliable and uninterrupted supply of thermal energy to the Plaintiff *(2).

In addition, when deciding on the supply of heat energy to household consumers through ownerless networks, the following must be taken into account.

Firstly, the legislator introduced a special procedure for establishing the boundaries of operational responsibility. Thus, in accordance with paragraph 8 of the Rules for the maintenance of common property in an apartment building, approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of August 13, 2006 N 491 * (3), as a general rule, the external boundary of the heat supply networks that are part of the common property of an apartment building is the external the boundary of the wall of an apartment building, and the boundary of operational responsibility in the presence of a collective (common building) meter for metering consumed heat energy is the point of connection of the collective (common building) meter with the corresponding utility network included in the apartment building.

Secondly, the requirement that the consumer has a power receiving device connected directly to the networks of the heat supply organization (Article 539 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) does not apply to the relationships under consideration. According to paragraph 8 of the Rules for the provision of utility services to citizens, approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of May 23, 2006 N 307, the terms of a civil contract concluded with an energy supply organization must not contradict the norms of housing legislation. And, as a result, the norms of civil legislation regulate relations regarding the supply of thermal energy to household consumers only to the extent that they do not contradict the norms of housing legislation.

Thus, when supplying household consumers with heat energy through ownerless networks, neither heat supply organizations nor network companies have the right to shirk their responsibilities for uninterrupted and reliable heat supply.

Supply relations through ownerless networks of organizations that consume thermal energy for other purposes not related to household needs are regulated completely differently. Article 539 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation establishes a restriction on concluding a heat supply agreement depending on whether the consumer has a heat-consuming power plant connected directly to the networks of the heat supply organization. As a result, as practice shows, heat supply organizations refuse to enter into contracts for the supply of thermal energy through ownerless networks. At the same time, such consumers are presented with bills for payment of non-contractual energy consumption. But in the event of an accident on ownerless networks, heat supply organizations refer to the fact that neither the law nor the contract imposes an obligation on them to maintain them. And quite often, when supplied through ownerless networks to organizations that consume thermal energy for other purposes not related to household needs, it is these consumers who are forced to bear the full costs associated with the operation of ownerless networks.

To summarize, I would like to note: if the responsibility for the operation and repair of ownerless engineering infrastructure facilities, in particular heating networks, is assigned to both the heat supply organization and the network company, it will ultimately lead to the inclusion of these costs in heat energy tariffs. And, as a result, it is the consumer who will finance the maintenance and repair of ownerless heating networks. But there are no legal prerequisites for imposing on consumers the obligation to maintain such sections of networks in good condition. This means that this should be done by professional participants in the thermal energy market, namely heat supply and network organizations.

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*(1) Resolution of the Fifth Arbitration Court of Appeal dated October 29, 2008 in case No. A51-3537/2008/23-61/05-AP-129/2008 // Archive of the Fifth Arbitration Court of Appeal.
*(2) Resolution of the arbitration court of cassation dated September 23, 2008 in case No. A11-11702/2007-K1-6/37 // Archive of the Federal Arbitration Court of the Volga-Vyatka District.
*(3) NW RF. 2006. N 34. Art. 3680.