Big developers are interested in getting land.
There are hundreds of deceived shareholders and equity holders in the Sverdlovsk region who were told to wait another year. The regional authorities have delayed the plan to provide housing for this group until 2023. The situation is particularly complex for shareholders who have rights to illegally built real estate and land, as new developers and investors have to engage in lengthy negotiations and auctions to resolve the issue. Residents accuse developers of trying to buy their property at reduced prices, while builders claim that property owners have unreasonable demands. Most conflicts revolve around the houses of Vladimir Vorobyov, who is now in prison. Developers hope that the methods used in the integrated development of territories will help resolve disputes. However, the authorities are postponing the application of these methods to residents of illegally built houses until the CRT scheme is in its early stages of implementation.
A government official stated that since the inclusion in the equity holder registry has been extended until the end of 2022, the current list may increase by another 10-20 names. The new plan is to resettle the affected citizens in new apartments by the end of 2023, although the previous deadline was set for this year.
However, the deputies requested more specific data. For example, Arkady Chernetsky pointed out that these statistics do not include defrauded shareholders. According to the regional Ministry of Construction, in addition to the 25 deceived equity holders, there are 330 other affected citizens, although there were around a thousand of them at the beginning of 2020. RGS-Academic, Atomstroykompleks, and other large developers have contributed significantly to the resettlement by receiving land plots in return.
Currently, most of the affected people, who were put on the Ministry of Construction's list, are buyers of apartments in the buildings constructed by Vladimir Vorobyov, who was found guilty. He built multi-apartment houses with two or three floors, pretending they were individual homes to avoid getting approval for the project.
Vorobyov collected money from people using various methods, including loan contracts. The buildings themselves are set to be demolished, and the apartment buyers were not considered deceived equity holders and could only expect compensation after a regional law was introduced to address their issues. The Ministry of Construction's list now includes 223 people affected by the actions of the developer.
Nizhneisetsky Prud Specialized Developer LLC is now compensating the buyers of apartments in Vorobyov’s buildings as part of an agreement with the Ministry. The company has information about 130 citizens at the moment.
It's important to note that small studio apartments in these houses were sold about 10 years ago for around 700,000 rubles, and the housing quality was low. For example, the houses were not connected to a centralized sewerage system. Despite this, when big developers tried to buy the land, residents often received very little compensation and the transactions were actually refused.
Despite resistance, several apartment owners in Vorobyov's buildings managed to establish their rights to land and property through the courts. In some cases, they even completed the network at their own cost and connected the houses to gas supply and centralized sewerage. When the Brusnika company tried to buy a plot under one of these houses in Uralmash, the price increased from 7-8 to 40 million rubles. After acquiring the plots, the developer built the residential complex “Northern Lights” on them.
The developers explain the restrained interest in acquiring apartments and land from shareholders and equity holders who have registered ownership rights in troubled houses (about 70 people did this), the developers explain by the extreme complexity of the dialogue.
Recall that the law on the integrated development of territories (KRT) provides for the assessment of all property according to uniform rules and the proposal to replace housing of no less area. Cash compensation is also possible.
However, the practice of applying this law in the Sverdlovsk region has not yet been tested, and it is not being applied to the troubled houses of deceived shareholders. The Ministry of Construction also notes that the development of each site with the houses of Vorobyov and similar developers after compensation payments to citizens “will be considered separately.”
