Owners of residential units previously administered by the Municipal Housing Management Establishment are moving to new property managers. By September 30, MZGM will terminate its management agreements with nearly 600 condominium associations.
A condominium association is formed by the owners of units located in a given property. These include tenants who have purchased their units and the Municipal Commune, which owns the remaining, unsold apartments. Figuratively speaking, a condominium association may consist, for example, of one stairwell in a given property. Naturally, someone must manage the property—that is, organize repairs, clean, maintain order and keep the accounts. Under the law, a property manager may be a natural person or a legal entity. Until now, the Municipal Housing Management Establishment had managed the privately owned units.
Why is MZGM handing over management?
The answer to this question is not simple. The legal basis for the operation of condominium associations is the Act of June 24, 1994 (Journal of Laws of 2000, No. 80, item 903) on ownership of premises. It contains no provision stating that a budgetary establishment such as MZGM may not manage condominium associations.
On the one hand, MZGM employees claim that the cause of all the confusion is the Supreme Audit Office’s latest inspection and its report, which allegedly ordered the management of condominium associations to be transferred to non-budgetary entities. On the other hand, they cite Article 7 of the Act of December 20, 1996 on municipal management (Journal of Laws of 1997, No. 9, item 43), which states: "(...)activities exceeding tasks of a public-utility nature may not be carried out in the form of a budgetary establishment(...)".
Why, then, did MZGM’s activities in this area suddenly begin to exceed activities "of a public-utility nature"? It is not known. Nearly eight years have passed since the Act on municipal management came into force. Many people are asking themselves whether it would not have been easier and more beneficial for apartment owners to transform MZGM itself into a company wholly owned by the Municipal Commune. The change of manager now under way is not only time-consuming and unclear, but also shifts the burden of the related formalities onto the owners.
A manager is needed
Several managers are seeking to take over the associations, including the Social Housing Association (TBS). It is a limited liability company established by the Municipal Commune. Until now, the company dealt with residential construction and the administration of new apartments. It is now seeking to manage buildings that are often a hundred years old and in poor technical condition.
Other managers are vying to take over properties in good technical condition, offering lower advance payments toward management costs. It is known that most buildings administered by MZGM are in poor condition, so TBS will presumably take over all those unwanted by others. How will it cope? We will see.
The unit owners themselves are reacting in various ways to all the confusion surrounding the transfer of management. Those opposed to MZGM do not hide their joy, hoping for more rational management of the money. They are moving to private managers, unwilling to hear about TBS, which they associate with the Commune and therefore with MZGM.
Most, however, do not understand why things must be different than before. They are mostly elderly and ill, viewing every change with distrust. Their attitude is summed up by a brief question: Who was it bothering?
Marcin Zabawa