Defence of Housing Rights by Government Housing Supervisory Authorities

The purpose of the research. In the current context of the development of extrajudicial forms of citizens’ rights defence, the administrative procedure for the defence of the mentioned rights within cases provided for by law is of particular importance. The need to identify the peculiarities of the protection of housing rights of citizens by state housing supervision authorities is predetermined by the fact that there is no detailed regulation of the administrative procedure for the defence of housing rights in housing legislation, as well as due attention to it on the part of the science of housing law. The purpose of the study is to identify the peculiarities of the administrative procedure for the defence of citizens’ housing rights by state housing supervision authorities, as well as the peculiarities of the defence of citizens’ housing rights by government housing supervision authorities, implemented by them in court.

Results. The author concludes that it is necessary to differentiate between the protection of housing rights in the administrative order and administrative-legal protection of housing rights. Defence of the housing rights of citizens, carried out in administrative order by the authorities of the governmental housing supervision is an activity of a human rights nature carried out by them in compliance with the legally established procedure and applying legal means aimed at the restoration of violated housing rights. Housing rights defense in the administrative order, implemented by government housing supervision authorities by means of issued instructions to eliminate revealed violations, is closely interrelated with the administrative defence of housing rights, carried out in the case of bringing the offender to civil liability with the imposition of administrative and legal means in the form of a fine or a warning, but does not merge with it, because it has a different goal - the real restoration of violated housing rights of citizens who have applied for defense. Taking into account that a significant number of housing rights by their legal nature are civil-law rights, the administrative procedure actually provides civil-law protection of these rights. The applicable method of defending housing rights in the administrative procedure is mainly the restoration of the state of affairs that existed prior to the violation of a housing right and the suppression of actions that violate this right or threaten to violate it. The administrative procedure for the defence of housing rights does not imply the application of measures of administrative and legal liability. Along with that, the application of administrative-legal means in administrative defence strengthens the effect of the administrative order of housing rights defence, encouraging the offender to stop actions that violate the rights and legitimate interests of participants of housing relations, and allows to prevent potentially possible violations thereof. A means of defending housing rights under the administrative procedure is an application or complaint submitted to the government housing supervision authority by a person in the case of a violation of his or her rights and legitimate interests. When citizens apply to the government housing supervision authorities, their violated housing rights are defended by means of a human rights decision in the form of issuing instructions to legal entities and individual entrepreneurs to eliminate identified violations. An instruction issued by a housing supervision authority acts as an administrative and legal means of ensuring the restoration of violated housing rights. In the case where the defence of housing rights in an administrative procedure using administrative and legal measures has proved ineffective and the restoration of violated subjective housing rights has not taken place, the government housing supervisory authorities defend the rights and legitimate interests of citizens who have applied to them in court. In this case, the restoration of violated housing rights is carried out through the application of traditional civil law methods of defence, including such as invalidation of the decision passed by the general meeting of owners of premises in the apartment building, invalidation of the apartment building management agreement. Defence of the housing rights of citizens who have applied to the state housing supervision authorities in a judicial procedure in cases prescribed by law is carried out mainly in the interests of the majority of owners and users of residential premises living in an apartment building, provided that the supervised persons fail to comply with the issued instructions to eliminate the identified violations.