Municipal debts and problems with their collection, heating shutdown

Abstract

This article will be about the emergence and collection of debts for communal services. There are highlighted the key points, related to the insufficiently regulated system of debt collection from consumers in practice, the main mistakes that communal services make in their activities, the problems of providing low-quality communal services, which is currently very relevant in Ukraine, the main points by which consumers can reduce their debt or release themselves from paying debts, and vice versa, the main mistakes that consumers often make in practice and face serious problems in the future. From a legal point of view, this article highlights the moments when the consumer is obliged to pay for utility services, and when he/she has the right not to do so. Separate emphasis is placed on the rights and obligations of the consumer of communal services. The legal and practical aspects of disconnecting the consumer from centralized heating and installing autonomous heating are analyzed, and those cases, from the point of view of the law, when it is very difficult to do in practice, are analyzed separately. The current judicial practice on issues of collection of debt for utility payments, on issues of write-off of debt due to the statute of limitations is analyzed. The questions are analyzed in detail from a legal point of view, why some believe that the debt can be written off by the statute of limitations, while others, on the contrary, say that it is impossible. There are highlighted the practical points that consumers and utility organizations themselves often face at the stage of implementing a court decision. The issue and problems of arbitrary disconnection from centralized heating are discussed, from the point of view of the consumer's responsibility for such actions and his/her obligation to pay for utility services after that. The legal reasons that force consumers to take such critical actions as arbitrary disconnection from centralized heating are also highlighted and possible solutions to this situation are proposed