On November 22, Orsha / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. Citizens should take a more active part in managing the common property of apartment buildings. This point of view was expressed in an exclusive interview with a BELTA correspondent by the Minister of Housing and Communal Services of Belarus, Andrei Shoretz. "I am deeply convinced that citizens living in apartment buildings, where 86% of housing is privately owned, are obliged to be responsible not only for their own apartment but also for the common property of the building," the minister said. Currently, there are several ways to manage common property: through a housing and maintenance office (ZhES), a management company, a homeowners' association, or direct management. And citizens are empowered to choose this form themselves. The Ministry of Housing and Communal Services has no information that anyone is being forced to sign contracts with management companies. If a citizen is dissatisfied with the form of management or the quality of services, they can always, together with other residents of this common property, convene a general meeting and choose an acceptable form of management. In addition, if they cannot gather 25% of the common property owners, they can contact the executive committee, which is obliged to hold a general meeting where an authorized person will be elected, and a form of management for this property will be chosen, explained Andrei Shoretz. "However, citizens do not exercise this right. On the one hand, they are not sufficiently proactive and do not want to deal with it, and on the other hand, executive committees consider such work an unnecessary headache," he believes. According to Andrei Shoretz, citizens often take a dependent position and are unwilling to manage their common property, part of the services for which is subsidized by the state. At the same time, the owner of a private house repairs the roof, erects a fence, maintains engineering communications at their own expense at market prices, and does not seek subsidies from the state, the minister added. Currently, a set of necessary documents has been created in the republic for citizens who wish to manage their own homes. No additional documents are required, said Andrei Shoretz. -0-

BELTA