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How the housing rental market in Moscow works - distinguishing features

 
Tags: Insurance deposit | Home rent | Moscow | Realtor | Registration | General characteristics

The Moscow rental market has historically developed a series of unwritten rules, which usually all participants are forced to adhere - landlords, tenants, realtors. If you have recently arrived in Moscow from the regions and plan to rent an apartment, or simply never rented an apartment in Moscow, then you will be very useful to know about them. Some of them often seem irrational, but agreeing on other conditions can be quite difficult in practice. About insurance deposit, the rules of distribution of the real estate commission and other nuances of the capital apartment rental market will be discussed in the article.

Insurance deposit - a lessor’s guarantee from an unscrupulous tenant

Security deposit is the guarantee payment that the tenant pays to the moment of conclusion of the contract and which under certain conditions may be returned to the tenant (set off against the last month payment) if the last will conscientiously fulfill its obligations under the contract. On practice a large number of synonyms are used, which in essence mean the same - a deposit, a pledge, an insured amount, a guarantee deposit, a security payment, last month, etc. It is important to understand that the insurance deposit is not legal term (unlike, for example, collateral, deposit and security payment - a full list of enforcement methods obligations are given in Chapter 23 of the Civil Code). As a result, the the term is determined solely by the lease agreement. Therefore, in any disputes about order payment / return of the insurance deposit is important what the parties wrote in the contract.

A security deposit protects the owner of the apartment from damage to property, from the termination of the contract by the tenant ahead of time and partially from the insolvency of the tenant.

In all these cases, the lessor’s losses are compensated just from the amount of the insurance deposit. Parties may to agree that in the absence of force majeure circumstances, the deposit will be counted as the last payment (hence one of the names - “last month "), or returned to the tenant. In general, this is absolutely normal practice, which is applicable throughout the country, and when renting out not only residential, but commercial real estate (offices, premises in shopping centers) too.

Deposit amount is set individually, but most often it is equal to one month of rent. Of course, this creates additional difficulties for the tenant, since twice the amount that he needs to pay a rent at a beginning of rent agreement. Owners insistently require the inclusion of a clause in the contract about the deposit, as they also carry certain risks (we will be objective, not only unscrupulous tenants exist, but owners apartments too). To protect their interests, it is important for tenats to indicate in the contract, that in case of early termination of the contract at the initiative of the lessor insurance deposit is refundable in double amount (to compensate including expenses on the commission of a realtor, more on this below).

the realtor comission is most often paid by the tenant

This is one of the most disputed (and criticized) default rules of the Moscow housing rental market. Really, the realtor is usually attracted by the owner of the apartment, the realtor performs a significant part of the work (compiles and places an ad, promotes it on online real estate boards, negotiates with tenants, prepares a draft contract, etc.) for him and generally defends owner interests in the transaction. Realtor and tenant is not even in a contractual relationship, but tenant pay for realtor services.

The origins of this practice in that historically the rental market in Moscow was the owner's market.

Borders of the city limited housing capacities, and the payment demand for rent is great (including thanks to numerous visitors from the regions of Russia and the countries of the former USSR). Realtors, competing for customers, offered property owners an additional service in the form of search customers, as well as compilation contracts - absolutely free. Owners happily agreed. Besides, in practice, tenants usually pay attention primarily to rental rate (and less for associated expenses, such as deposit and commission). If the owner himself paid the expenses of the realtor, he would have been forced offset them through a higher rental rate, which means it the default proposal would lose competition on numerous boards real estate ads. As a result, Moscow landlords eventually got used to to the fact that the commission is paid by the tenant.

Amount of commission more often total equals the monthly rental cost (in practice, it may be higher, and below). As a result, at the time of conclusion of the contract, the tenant most often must pay a lump sum of three times the rental price apartments (first month fee + insurance deposit + realtor commission). Usually it is possible to avoid paying a real estate commission in the following ways:

  • Search property from owners . There are online portals that only post ads from owners, or specifically mark ads from agencies. But you need to understand that realtor agencies are the main buyers of advertising on real estate sites. They monitor proposals with mark "from the owner" and bother owners to sell their services. Moreover, the promotional opportunities of realtor agencies are incomparably higher (as a rule, economies of scale apply - they can the buyer is advertising on average at lower prices), therefore the absolute most owners prefer to work with agencies - it's that simple faster and more profitable for them. As a result, the vast majority liquid and interesting flats will be offered precisely by agencies, and giving up agents, you greatly limit yourself in your search.
  • After the first show, try directly negotiate with the owner . A very common method, suffering from which exclusively a realtor. Without going into moral and ethical issues, note that in some cases the method yields a result.
  • Bring your realtor to the deal (more precisely - tenant friend in the guise of a realtor). In this case, some realtors agree to divide the commission in half between the tenant’s realtor and lessor, that is, for the tenant, this will mean a 50 percent savings on commission. But this requires the consent of the opposite side to such option.
  • Focus on total cost apartment rental . In our opinion, the most correct strategy - in this case, you You’ll see both apartments from the owner and agent’s apartments, and make a decision based on the price, which includes all expenses (commission of a realtor must be divided by the cost of renting the apartment in months and added to rental rate). The method is effective, but requires higher time costs to search.

In conclusion, it’s important add that this is not only a Moscow practice, it is also widely widespread in St. Petersburg and many other million-plus cities. Now, as market overstock increases and population incomes decline, the situation is gradually starting to change in the opposite direction - some landlords, trying to rent an apartment faster, they compensate part of the commission to their realtor or even fully pay for his services at his own expense. For sell/buy market it is common practice for apartments to pay commission to an agent the one who hired him. The situation on the rental market for elite housing and business class housing exactly the same - there it is important to find a solvent tenant and rent the object itself. The economy segment is also gradually moving in this direction, but the most common practice is still paying the commission by the tenant.

Contract tenancy is 11 months

The absolute majority rental agreements in Moscow is concluded for 11 months. Reason enough simple - in accordance with the provisions of Art. 674 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation it is not required to register deal in state authorities.

Few of the owners

apartments wants to get involved with additional difficulties in the form of a trip to state authority. Moreover, registration in state authority creates additional tax risks - few of owners pay taxes on the amount of rent. Therefore

standard practice on market - enter into an agreement in simple writing for 11 months, and then, if everyone is happy, re-sign him for a new term

Sometimes it even happens that parties generally satisfied with each other generally avoid additional legal formalities and after the old contract does not conclude a new one, but continue live and pay "as is". This immediately puts the tenant in the rank disenfranchised - you can evict him from your apartment at any time without even providing time to search for new housing. Therefore, we highly recommend including in the contract lease terms like “in the absence of objection of the parties, the contract is prolonging on the same terms for the same period. ”

Rental payments are usually made in cash

This situation is another direct consequence of the desire of the vast majority of owners to save on taxes. One of the main evidence of evasion taxes - evidence of receipt of cash. Even with the rental agreement the owner of the apartment often remains the opportunity to challenge the fact of evasion - one way or another trying to convince the tax service that the money he did not receive (for example, due to insolvency of tenants).

Difficulties with temporary registration in a rented apartment

According to requirements of Russian law, a citizen must register at the place of temporary stay, if the duration of his stay in the region (subject Federation) exceeds 90 days (Article 5 5242-1 of the Federal Law). The exception is cases when a citizen has a residence registration in the same region. Otherwise, he faces an administrative fine (Article 19.15.1 of the Administrative Code). In addition, a significant part of public services (medical services, school services and kindergartens) are provided at the place of residence. Therefore the tenant usually extremely interested in obtaining this registration. For this, according to legislation, it requires the consent of the owners of the premises (Art. 9 Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 713 of July 17, 1995). However many of them still against it - all because of the same tax risks.

therefore the most common situation - people who came to Moscow from other regions are living without registration

At the same time, the owner takes the risk of receiving a fine for providing housing to a citizen, not having registration at the place of stay. However, the amount of the fine in Moscow currently makes up from 5 to 7 thousand rubles, which is not comparable with the amount tax savings (which amounts to tens of thousands), and the probability get a fine is not so high. Therefore, if you understand that temporary registration is necessary for you (for example, for placing a child in kindergarten), then in any case it will be necessary to agree with lessors to provide temporary registration, even if in this case to you, most likely, you will need to agree to a slight increase in rental rates.

Utility payments are shared between the landlord and the tenant

Most often, the parties agree that the utility payments is already included in the rental price, with some exception. As a rule, the tenant pays only those types of utilities, the cost of which directly depends on the volume of consumption (electricity, cold and hot water). Pay for everything else (the maintenance of the premises, contributions for major repairs, heating, etc.) - duty of the landlord.

All that is said above is very often applicable not only to the Moscow housing rental market, but to the whole Russia (primarily to large cities). The Moscow "rule" should be considered primarily the characteristics of the distribution of the agent's commission when renting a house.

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Олеся Савельева
24.12.2017 12:00 Reply
Да, с тремя платежами конечно очень несправедливо.
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