“Rossiyskaya Gazeta”: Raids to search for “gray” tenants intensified in the regions

Municipalities in the Russian regions have begun to more actively raid apartments in search of illegal tenants and involve management companies (MC) in this. However, the management companies themselves are not too willing to cooperate, Rossiyskaya Gazeta (RG) reports, citing market participants.

So, in particular, the publication points out, in January, the management companies of the Vologda Oblast received letters from the tax inspectorate, where they were asked to inform about the confirmed facts of renting out housing in the houses they serve. Such requests from the tax service were also in a number of million-plus cities, notes the director of the National Housing Congress Association, Tatyana Vepretskaya.

Back in 2018, RG reminds, the Russian Ministry of Finance sent methodological recommendations to the regions on increasing municipal revenues and budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Significantly affect the growth of income can identify cases of renting housing without paying personal income tax, the document noted.

And cities have already begun to report on the application of these essentially non-mandatory recommendations. So, during the All-Russian competition of best municipal practices for 2021, raids on tenants were reported from Atkarsk, Saratov Region, Tashlinsky District, Orenburg Region, Khabarovsk (70 illegal landlords were identified here, the information was sent to the tax authorities).

We add that last year the Ministry of Construction developed a bill that is designed to bring the rental housing market out of the shadows. According to the document, which, as the Kommersant newspaper pointed out, was sent to the relevant departments for approval at the end of November, the owners of apartments, apartments and parking spaces will have to register all lease agreements in this system and carry out all calculations within the GIS. Elena Ivankina, Professor of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Head of the Department of Real Estate Economics at the Institute of Industry Management, shared her opinion with Rosbalt on this matter.