Residents of Uzhhorod's largest Roma settlement self-organized and created the first homeowners association among Roma, "First Roma HOA". The entire process – from idea to success – took over six months, and at each stage, the Roma received free legal aid.
Solving the housing and domestic problems of Roma, and improving their living conditions in Roma compact settlements are extremely urgent and complex tasks. This is due to the fact that Roma very often lack identity documents, and documents certifying the right to housing in a Roma compact settlement are even rarer. Lawyers from the Uzhhorod Center for Legal Information and Consultation, with the assistance and support of the European Roma Rights Centre (Budapest) and the International Renaissance Foundation, decided to tackle this problem – and succeeded!
It is clear that the most effective approach to improving Roma housing conditions is their unification into a homeowners association. This type of association allows co-owners to jointly solve problems such as building repairs, utility connections, maintenance of the adjacent territory, etc., – says lawyer Volodymyr Navrotskyi, head of the Carpathian Agency of Human Rights "Vested", who oversaw this case from the very beginning to its successful completion.
THREE CORNERSTONES: FIND, CONVINCE, RESTORE DOCUMENTS
The first problem was to find a building where Roma families lived together in a Roma compact settlement. Such a building was found in the Radvanka microdistrict, in the area of Telman Street: approximately 50 Roma, including children, live in a 2-story building designed for 4 families.
The second problem was to convince the Roma of the need to create a homeowners association (HOA) and that they themselves needed to put in effort for this. Several families did not express a desire to create an HOA – the existing state of affairs satisfied them as it was. However, three families – Oleksandra, Vasyl, and Stepan – approved the idea.
And the third problem was to restore documents for the apartments that their parents or grandparents moved into back in 1979. It turned out that in none of the families were the original tenants still alive.
SUPPORT AT EVERY STAGE – AND SUCCESS!
Center lawyer Volodymyr Navrotskyi helped the residents of the building apply to the regional archive and obtain a certificate stating that in 1979, these buildings were indeed taken onto the communal balance, and then housing lease agreements should have been concluded with their residents. After obtaining death certificates for the main tenants from the civil registration authorities, all residents, with the lawyer's assistance, submitted applications to the Uzhhorod city authorities for the re-registration of housing lease agreements. This was successfully done.
The next step was the preparation of documents for apartment privatization. For this, the families had to obtain technical passports, necessary certificates, and submit packages of documents to the city council to receive certificates of apartment ownership. After this, people registered their joint shared ownership rights to their apartments with the real estate rights registration authorities and proceeded to the final stage – the creation of the HOA.
– In general, the process of creating the HOA – from idea to implementation – took more than six months, – says Volodymyr Navrotskyi. – The privatization process took the most time. After holding the constituent meeting, three families decided to create an HOA, elect a chairman, secretary, and auditor. They submitted all documents to the registration service, and a few days later received an extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs regarding the registration of the homeowners association named "First Roma HOA" (EDRPOU code 39583015) as of January 14, 2015.
The association's participants plan to take the entire building onto their balance, maintain the adjacent territory, improve and fence it, connect utilities, and jointly solve all current housing problems.