"I am a citizen of Latvia, a pensioner, a resident of Riga. And I look to the future with great concern: they say that all rental agreements will only be for a specified period. What if it’s for a year? I urge to provide for the possibility of concluding lease agreements for at least 10 years with the right to extend them!" – this cry of the soul, unfortunately, was not taken into account by the Riga City Council. Reforms are coming to the capital soon, and they are harsh!
The Municipality Is Not the House Management
Despite the fact that the apartment buildings, in which we predominantly reside, bear the proud label "municipality property" – in reality, they are no longer owned but only serviced by the enterprise Rīgas namu pārvaldnieks. The overwhelming majority of the houses and apartments are owned by private owners, while the municipal housing is quite fragmented and chaotic.
The document titled "Main Directions of the Housing Policy of the Municipality of Riga," adopted by the Riga City Council last year, is set to last until 2030. It contains interesting facts:
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The capital has 29,252 residential buildings with 341,882 apartments: this is 32% of all housing in Latvia;
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The municipal government owns 11,610 apartments, of which 11,257 apartments are in the administrative territory of Riga and 353 apartments are outside;
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Among the mentioned apartments, there are 1,773 social apartments, of which 235 social apartments are outside social housing;
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The Riga municipal housing stock is one of the smallest in Europe (3.4%), but larger than in Tallinn (1%) and Vilnius (1%).
A New Broom
Elīna Treija (National Alliance) was elected as the Chair of the Riga City Council Housing and Environment Committee in the current convocation. A quite remarkable person: a former actress of the Valmiera Drama Theatre, owner of a financial consulting firm, and a former member of the Saeima from the Zatlers' party. She holds meetings of her current institution more frequently than others.
Thus, the new edition of the mandatory rules of the Riga City Council No. 141 "On the Procedure for Registration and Provision of Assistance in Solving Housing Issues" came into being. Here are a few examples of the amended articles:
- The Rental Commission leases municipal residential premises for a period of up to two years, providing in the lease agreement the right of the tenant and other persons with independent rights to use the residential premises to extend the agreement if:
18.1. they fulfill the conditions of the lease agreement;
18.2. their place of residence is declared at the address of the leased residential premises;
18.3. they do not own a separate residential property or house suitable for living.
- The Rental Commission may decide to renew the concluded lease agreement for municipal residential premises with any of the persons with independent rights to use the residential premises if a request is received from the tenant and that person and the consent of other persons with independent rights to use the residential premises is obtained.
Rephrase item 35 as follows:
- The Rental Commission decides to include the tenant's spouse, to whom a social apartment in a social housing building has been leased, in the lease agreement as a person with independent rights to use the residential premises if the spouse is a person of retirement age or a person with a disability of the 1st or 2nd group and the household is classified as a low-income household, or is a politically repressed person who has reached retirement age, or is a person with a disability of the 1st or 2nd group and does not own a residential property or house suitable for living.
A new concept regarding financial status has been introduced:
"A person with certain income – a tenant of a denationalized house, whose income for the last three months after paying taxes to the first or only person in the household does not exceed the income threshold for a low-income household, to which a coefficient of 1.1 is applied, and if the residential premises are rented by two or more persons, the other persons are subject to a coefficient of 0.85 of the threshold established for the first person (rounded to whole euros), and the savings do not exceed five months of the minimum wage for each person in the household."
Why Is There No Longer an Indefinite Contract?
People are concerned about the new decisions!
"We are categorically against these amendments, which will worsen the rental rights for both current and new tenants. The Council must carefully assess the tenants; most are potential non-payers, and we need to cooperate with the house management: it does not provide accurate information about vacant apartments that could have long been returned to people waiting in line; there are apartments that have been empty for years, yet everywhere it is said that we have long queues."
"Why is the lease now only for 2 years? Why is there no longer an indefinite contract? We will always have to live in stress: 2 years pass quickly, and you cannot be sure – will you be thrown out of the apartment or will the contract be extended for another 2 years? Why can’t those who pay on time and comply with the terms of the contract live peacefully and not worry about the deadline and be sure that they will not be thrown out of the apartment?"
"Not to support" – such a note was left by deputies, members of the housing committee, next to the residents' protests. Well, when this social bottom was reached, a knock came from below: the party genius of the committee chair Silini, the famous Liana Langa, stated that only those who do not know Latvian remain in the municipal housing stock. There is no need to coddle such people.
