Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the number of lawsuits and orders from condominiums to debtors has increased significantly, which indicates new challenges in the field of housing and communal services. As of the end of 2024, associations of co-owners of apartment buildings filed 3,630 such cases in court, which is 2.7 times more than before the war. About this informs The opendatabase.
The year 2023 was the year with the highest number of court appeals, when condominiums filed 1,400 lawsuits against co-owners, which is explained by the cancellation of the ban on fines for housing debts at the end of the year. However, even after this, appeals to the court did not decrease: in 2024, 3,600 lawsuits were already filed, which indicates a growing trend towards judicial resolution of financial issues.
Geographically, the largest number of cases was recorded in the Dnipropetrovsk region – 644 cases, which is 18% of the total number of appeals. Odesa Oblast is in second place with 547 cases or 15%, and Zaporizhia Oblast is in third place with 488 lawsuits (14%).
In addition to classic lawsuits, the practice of applying for a court order is becoming more and more popular. This procedure significantly speeds up debt collection, because court orders are issued without calling the parties, based on documents confirming the existence of the debt. After receiving the order, condominiums can immediately apply to the executors for forced collection of funds.
In recent years, the number of court orders has been increasing. In 2022, 685 of them were issued, in 2023 – 1.8 thousand, and in 2024 this indicator increased to 2.2 thousand. The share of court orders in the total volume of cases increased from 51% to 62%, which indicates the effectiveness of this method of solving the problem of debtors.
In connection with the increase in the number of debtors and lawsuits, co-owners of buildings are faced with the question of how to avoid the situation when the debts of individual residents have to be covered at the expense of others. Experts recommend condominiums to carefully monitor the state of payment for utility services, conduct active outreach among residents, and use all available legal mechanisms to protect their financial interests.
