Several years ago, the home of a resident of Ziepniekkalns was destroyed by a fire caused by a neighbor from the top floor. The apartment was ruined by both fire and water used in the extinguishing. For a long time, the man has been receiving utility bills for an apartment he has not lived in for a long time and which he decided to transfer to the state. This happened over a year ago, but the bills keep coming, reports the Degpunktā program (TV3).
Three years ago, a neighbor living on the top floor, while drunk, dropped a stack of paper onto the electric stove in his sleep — the apartment ignited instantly. At that time, Janis and his family, living on the first floor, were already preparing for bed.
"He was drunk. We called the firefighters, but unfortunately, it was already too late — the fire had gained strength. He was unemployed, only delivering advertising brochures to stores — he had accumulated half a ton of paper in the apartment. The papers caught fire, he ran from one window to another, but ultimately collapsed in the kitchen," Janis recalls.
The neighbor perished in the flames, and the fire destroyed not only his apartment but also the other apartments in the building. Janis and his family had their ceilings collapse, and their floors and furniture were soaked with water — it was impossible to live there. The municipality provided housing for other residents, but Janis, his wife, and their three children had to manage on their own.
"To be honest, we were given nothing. We started looking for apartments ourselves, for some time we rented on Bauskas Street, lived in a basement in Agenskalns — there was nowhere to go, the landlord let us into the basement without amenities," Janis said.
The relocations were accompanied by regular bills from "Rīgas namu pārvaldnieks". Janis, as the apartment owner, had to pay utility bills for the destroyed residence.
"Bills for all utilities started coming immediately, even though there was nothing there. Everything burned down — there was no electricity, no water. Essentially, we were paying into a void. One of the family members learned that it was possible to refuse the apartment through a notary," the man clarified.
And so it was done — Janis formally refused the apartment through a notary, and a corresponding entry was made in the Land Register: the apartment was transferred to the state. He hoped that since the apartment no longer belonged to him, the bills would stop — but that did not happen. The current debt exceeds 600 euros.
"And this has been going on all this time. Money accumulates for nothing. We use nothing, no one uses anything. It’s impossible to live here, there are no services, but we still have to pay for them. I contacted the ombudsman’s office — the lawyer said: 'What are you talking about! Demand your money back, this is illegal, because nothing is happening there!'".
The Kurzeme District Court also ruled in favor of Janis — there is no legal basis to demand these payments. Degpunktā contacted a representative of "Rīgas namu pārvaldnieks" to find out why the bills keep coming. It turned out that the property was indeed transferred to the state, but the state has not actually accepted it.
"We see that the owner has refused the property in favor of the state — this is indicated in the Land Register as a note. But for the transaction to be completed, the state must accept this property, and that has not happened. It is important to understand why. How was it supposed to be? The notary was supposed to pass the information to the State Revenue Service and the public assets administrator 'Possessor', who were supposed to jointly enter the new owner — the state — into the Land Register. But that did not happen," explained Inita Kabanova, a representative of "Rīgas namu pārvaldnieks".
Until this happens, "Rīgas namu pārvaldnieks" has no choice but to continue sending bills to Janis. In this excessively convoluted bureaucratic chain, it turns out there is another player involved — the Riga municipality. It receives a letter from the notary and is supposed to forward it to the responsible institutions for further processing. Degpunktā tried to find out who exactly made the mistake.
The notary indicated that the letter was sent to the municipality and provided a photo of the sent email. The State Revenue Service and 'Possessor' stated that they had not received the act of refusal. Therefore, it remains with the Riga City Council. They reported that the letter sent over a year ago seems to have been lost somewhere.
"We have not yet been able to find such a letter, but we continue to search. If the notification was lost due to a technical error, the process will need to be restarted from the notary's side. We will contact the notary with a request to resend the email stating that the municipality must accept the property to be transferred to the state," the council indicated.
It seems that the entire process will indeed have to start over. Once the state officially accepts the apartment as its property, all bills issued to Janis after the notary's entry will be canceled, and hopefully, this will end his headache.
