Łukasiewicza Resident Outraged by the Amount of the Charges. Cooperative President Explains

We received an email from a reader living in a building on Łukasiewicza Street:

(…) I would like to draw your attention to the settlement of central-heating and cold-water costs by SM Bolesławianka. Since October 2021, central-heating charges have increased by 73.06%, and this is the largest component of the operating fee that Bolesławiec residents have to pay every month.

In February this year, residents received the settlement of central-heating costs for 2022. Presenting detailed calculations, the cooperative stated that the building’s central-heating cost amounted to PLN 545,038.38 and gave the building’s heated area as 10,011.23 sq m. The truth is that this is only the area of the apartments, not the building’s heated area, which also includes commercial premises with a total area of 525.14 sq m. The building’s total heated area is therefore 11,388.50 sq m, not 10,011.23 sq m, as used by the housing cooperative for the settlement.

Why did the cooperative not include the commercial premises, from which it itself benefits, in the settlement?

The reader continued:

In response to the complaint submitted, the cooperative’s president, Beata Ślęzak, replied very laconically and evasively, stating that the settlement was correct and that the commercial premises were settled separately.

According to the regulations for settling central-heating costs established and adopted by the cooperative, the entire area of the building, not only the residential premises, is included in the cost settlement. I found no provisions in these regulations indicating separate settlements for premises belonging to the cooperative and different rules for privately owned residential premises.

This raises the question of whether only apartment residents bear the costs of heating the building. How are the commercial premises owned by the housing cooperative settled, and why are they not settled according to the same rules that apply to residents?

Do residents have to cover the costs of operating the commercial premises out of their own pockets, while the housing cooperative benefits from their rental income?

The settlement of central-heating costs would not arouse such emotions if it were not for the amount everyone has to pay. At the charges demanded by the cooperative from 1 February 2023, the annual heating cost in 2023 would amount to PLN 3,738 for a 50 sq m apartment.

He also added:

Additionally, for many years, instead of looking for where the water supplied to the building is being used, the cooperative has preferred to charge apartment residents for the shortfall. Every residential premises has a meter installed, yet every six months residents still have to pay an additional several dozen zlotys for water that was not used in their premises. In the entire block, in the second half of 2022, the cost of water used outside the apartment meters amounted to PLN 5,223.77 in total. At the then-current price of PLN 11.07 per cubic metre of water, this means that almost 472 cubic metres of water were used outside the meters!!! In 2017, after the cooperative was informed that the settlement contained irregularities and errors, the only thing it did was state that this was a computer-system error and order residents to pay an additional several dozen zlotys each.

Therefore, another question arises here as well: are the commercial premises also settled differently?

Who uses such quantities of water outside the meters?

All these questions and doubts are justified, and residents are awaiting detailed answers from the cooperative, especially since in 2021 the District Court in Bolesławiec issued a judgment in which SM Bolesławianka lost a case concerning an increase in the operating fee, partly because of the lack of professionalism in the cooperative’s actions, as stated in the reasoning of the judgment.

Beata Ślęzak, president of the “Bolesławianka” Housing Cooperative:

On behalf of the “Bolesławianka” Housing Cooperative in Bolesławiec, I inform you that the settlement of heat-supply costs for central heating for 2022 was prepared on the basis of the Regulations for Settling Heat-Supply Costs… – Resolution No. 21/2020 of the Supervisory Board dated 18 December 2020, which applies both to residential premises and commercial premises (Point 2, Section 2.3 of the Regulations).

The settlement prepared for the building on Łukasiewicza Street takes into account the total area, i.e. residential and commercial premises, and the costs are borne by residential premises (residents) and commercial premises (tenants) proportionally to their area.

The area cited by the reader, i.e. 525.14 sq m, is the area of ancillary premises, namely residents’ cellars, which are not taken into account when settling central-heating costs. The settlement of the building’s central-heating costs included PLN 545,038.38 for residential premises and PLN 61,238.06 for commercial premises.

The increase in costs since October 2021 resulted from successive changes to ZEC Bolesławiec’s heat tariff: on 5 October 2021, 12 February 2022, 24 March 2022 and 5 October 2022.

In properties that include commercial premises, costs are settled in accordance with the shares resulting from resolutions determining the subject matter of the separate ownership of the premises.

The settlement of water-consumption costs is carried out in accordance with the applicable regulations in the same manner for residential and commercial premises, while the balancing cost resulting from the difference between the costs of supplying water to and collecting wastewater from the building and the total costs in the premises is settled proportionally to water consumption in the premises.