Overview

• Lawmakers led by Andrei Shevchenko have submitted a bill to the State Duma defining how apartments in multiunit buildings in the Far North can be deemed vacant.
• An apartment would qualify as vacant if it meets at least two criteria, including a year or more of unpaid utilities, two tax periods of property-tax arrears, no meter changes for over a year, or physical signs of long absence such as missing doors, glazing, or radiators.
• Local governments would set the procedures and notification rules, and a special commission created by municipalities would decide whether a unit is vacant.
• Officials emphasized that ownership will not be taken from residents, and a transfer to municipal ownership would occur only after the owner's voluntary refusal and registration of title termination.
• Senators said municipalities could later allocate such units to people on housing waiting lists, including as social housing, if the owner has relinquished the property.