Which connection is illegal?
The provision of utility services to owners of residential premises is regulated by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated May 6, 2011 No. 354. Subclause. “e” of paragraph 35 of section V of the Decree prohibits
unauthorized connection of consumer equipment to in-house engineering systems or to centralized networks.
Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated May 6, 2011 No. 354
This means that to connect to the power grid, you need the approval of the organization responsible for its operation. There are no known cases in history when power engineers allowed an apartment owner to carry out life-threatening work. Their implementation is regulated by a number of rules, and they must be carried out by qualified personnel authorized to work on electrical installations.
This means that any connection made by an unauthorized employee is unauthorized, that is, unauthorized and illegal.
Responsibility for unauthorized connection
The legislation of the Russian Federation establishes the responsibility of citizens of the country for unauthorized connection to electrical networks. This information can be fully found in Article 7.19 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, where all relevant fines are listed.
Penalty for unauthorized connection of electricity after disconnection:
- For individuals - from 10 to 15 thousand rubles.
- For enterprises, organizations and institutions - from 100 to 200 thousand rubles.
- For legal entities and enterprise managers - from 30 to 80 thousand rubles. If they refuse, these citizens will be disqualified for up to two years.
In addition, the debtor undertakes to fully repay all debts to the supplier for consumed electricity within the period established by the magistrate court. If payments are not made during this time, the debtor will be subject to administrative arrest.
It is important to remember that for non-payment and unauthorized connection they cannot be held criminally liable - only administratively, in the form of paying a fine.
How illegal connections are detected
Employees of the electricity supplier, in full compliance with the law, carry out periodic inspections of the serviced networks, including in order to identify cases of violation of the law.
Subparagraph “e” of paragraph 34 of the said Resolution obliges the consumer
allow the contractor into the occupied residential premises or household to take readings of individual, common (apartment), room meters and distributors, check their condition, the fact of their presence or absence, as well as the reliability of the information transmitted by the consumer to the contractor
Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated May 6, 2011 No. 354
In accordance with the above provisions of the law, consumers are required to provide the supplier with evidence of the legality of using electricity.
How to avoid punishment
The owner can only find out that his house or apartment is connected to the network illegally after purchasing the property. In this case, immediately after discovering this fact, he should contact Energosbyt and call specialists.
In order to use electricity and other resources legally, you need to make the connection correctly, install a working meter, and use only approved electrical appliances.
When connecting, the supplier and the consumer enter into an agreement between themselves, according to which one party undertakes to regularly supply electricity, and the second – to pay for the service on time and not accumulate debts. It is also necessary to conclude agreements for the maintenance of electrical equipment and the accounting sequence.
IMPORTANT! These documents will confirm that the apartment, house, or other facility uses electricity legally.
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Legal power outage
Subparagraph “and” of paragraph 34 of Section V of the same Resolution No. 354 is obligatory on the consumer
Pay utility bills on time and in full.
Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated May 6, 2011 No. 354
Failure by the consumer to fulfill contractual obligations gives the supplier grounds to terminate the supply of electricity. The period of non-payment during which disconnection is not carried out is determined by the contract. Subparagraph “b” of paragraph 2 of the “Rules for complete and (or) partial limitation of the mode of consumption of electrical energy” defines this period as two billing periods.
After the specified period, the supplier notifies the consumer in writing about the upcoming disconnection. This gives the defaulter another 10 days to settle.
If even then mutual understanding is not reached between the parties, the supplier has the right to turn off the electricity. In this case, an act is drawn up recording the fact of power outage, the date, time of the outage and its reasons.
Where to go if you have an illegal connection to the power grid
In the event that the rights and legitimate interests of other persons are violated due to illegal consumption, citizens need to know how to deal with such unscrupulous consumers and where to turn.
The legislation of the Russian Federation establishes the following methods of struggle:
- complaint to the housing inspectorate:
- to the management company;
- to a homeowners association;
- appeal to the prosecutor's office;
- sending a statement of claim to the court.
The choice of one method or another directly depends on the specific life situation. Very often, contacting a homeowners association or management company does not lead to any results, so a more effective way is to contact the prosecutor’s office or court.
Any complaint must be made in writing. It must indicate the essence of the problem, the facts of illegal connection, the negative consequences that arose as a result of this, etc. Each citizen’s appeal must be given a timely response in the manner and according to the rules provided for by the federal law “on the procedure for considering citizens’ appeals in the Russian Federation.”
What to do if the electricity is turned off due to debt
First, you must find out on what basis the lights were turned off and whether the electricians even had the right to touch your meter. Of course, if you did not receive a written notice in your hands, this indicates that the shutdown occurred without warning. In this case, you need to complain to the above authorities. You can also say that the illegal disconnection of power to the apartment caused you a number of problems, namely:
- Have you turned off the electricity in your apartment and want to turn it back on? If the apartment building is a panel building, then you probably know that between adjoining apartments the sockets are installed opposite each other in the void. You can remove your socket and agree with your neighbor to make a jumper, thanks to which you will also have light. Of course, this is not legal and you will have to thank your neighbor, and when the problems with non-payment are resolved and the electrician comes to connect your apartment, do not forget to remove the jumper!
- The legal way is, again, to negotiate with your neighbor so that while the electricity is turned off, you can plug an extension cord into his outlet and extend it into your apartment. This way, you can connect lamps and not too powerful household appliances.
- If your electricity has been turned off for non-payment in a private home or country house, a mobile power station can help out. It is not very expensive and can also save you if the electricity is cut off during repair work. We talked about how to connect a generator to the network at home yourself in the corresponding article!
- Also in your apartment, by analogy with carrying, you can connect an extension cord from your neighbor’s outlet, at the other end of which there will be not a block of sockets, but another plug. Before doing this, we still recommend consulting with an electrician to see if this can be done in your case, whether the wiring will withstand, etc.
- Connecting solar panels can also solve the problem. If you have installed alternative sources of electricity at your dacha, do not forget that they will work even if the power is turned off for non-payment.
Also read: In case of divorce, I will pay half of the mortgage and I am on maternity leave
Fines for illegal connection to electricity: on whom, for what and how much
Illegal connections to heat and electricity will now be punished more severely. Especially those who break the rules not for the first time.
In Russia, fines for illegal connections to electrical and heating networks have increased. Administrative liability for the first unlawful access remains the same, but if the violation is committed a second or third time, citizens will have to pay up to 30 thousand rubles, officials - up to 200 thousand, and they also face disqualification. The maximum for a legal entity is 300 thousand rubles. Some experts say that at such prices it will actually become simply unprofitable to violate. The Ministry of Energy also believes that this measure will help.
“Now we will look at the practice of applying this law. Of course, it will help improve payment discipline in the electricity and heat markets and will greatly help to correctly qualify and more accurately hold individuals accountable when investigating violations,” says Anastasia Bondarenko, Deputy Minister of Energy.
We decided to take this measure because the volume of theft today is significant, for example, last December, the Moscow United Energy Company reported that over the course of a year it had identified almost one and a half thousand cases of illegal consumption of thermal energy - worth 1.2 billion rubles.
And they said that at the end of 2020, more than 72 thousand facts of theft of electricity worth 13.5 billion rubles were recorded.
“In terms of the number of thefts, more than 60 percent are city residents (individuals), and in terms of the volume of thefts, these are legal entities, in particular, small and medium-sized businesses, cafes and restaurants,” says Alexander Pyatigor, deputy general director of Rosseti.
At the same time, eight percent of those who once violated the rules for connecting to electricity did so again after removing the tie-in. The Ministry of Energy estimated the relapse rate to be twice as high.
Electricity is usually stolen in two ways: either by manipulating meters to change readings, or by unauthorized connection to the network. For example, residents of apartment buildings install magnets that slow down the rotation of metering devices, and summer residents connect directly to power lines. Owners of small shops on the first floors of residential buildings, which are connected to common electrical networks in the entrances, are often caught stealing.
Not only do other residents have to pay for illegal consumption, but the kilowatts are distributed to everyone. Such connections sometimes lead to power surges, premature wear of networks, and can even lead to an accident. “We put some kind of sawmill in the barn, and such a device uses a lot of electricity. This affects all residents of the locality, tension drops; the light bulb will shine less than before. As a result, all losses will be distributed among all residents,” says Igor Yushkov, leading analyst at the National Energy Security Fund.
Starting next year, a law should come into force that will oblige energy companies to install smart meters in private and apartment buildings, which will themselves monitor how much electricity consumers consume, remotely transmit data to the company and turn off electricity to debtors. It will become much more difficult to outwit such a technique.
