The concept of “apartments” may appear in domestic legislation, but no one is going to equate it with housing, stated Deputy Head of the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation Nikita Stasishin in a commentary to RIA Novosti.
“We had to define what an apartment is, so now everyone is working to correctly describe this type of non-residential premises. <...> No one ever said that apartments would be equal to housing, this cannot happen,” he said.
We are talking about technical work, the official emphasized.
The concept of apartments is not enshrined in Russian legislation. Such premises are not housing, so they usually cost 15–30% less than apartments. At the same time, it is impossible to obtain registration in the apartments, and therefore not to use social infrastructure, including kindergartens, hospitals and schools. They have been trying to legislate the status of apartments since 2016. Then the Ministry of Construction proposed to equate them to residential premises in apartment buildings; a corresponding bill was submitted to the State Duma in 2018, but the project was not discussed in parliament.
In 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to legislate the legal status of apartments. In the same year, a bill was introduced to the State Duma that defines a new category of real estate – multifunctional buildings, apartments will be equated to housing. The initiative did not pass the first reading; State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin sent it for revision.
Earlier in the State Duma developed a bill banning advertising of apartments under the guise of housing. One of the authors of the initiative, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Communal Services Svetlana Razvorotneva, noted in a conversation with Izvestia that advertising often does not contain information “about the status of real estate, namely apartments,” which is why citizens think that they are buying residential premises, but in reality – apartments.
