Oleg Popenko, Head of the Consumers of Utilities Union, has slammed attempts by authorities to shift the burden of maintaining apartment buildings entirely onto residents. The expert described this approach as a strategy by officials to avoid funding major capital repairs.
As reported by Hvylya, he wrote about this on his Telegram channel.
According to Popenko, Kyiv city officials are actively pushing the narrative that co-owners must handle utility maintenance themselves.
"Stop chanting this reformist mantra about having it both ways. It is a fact that people are owners, but aside from selecting property managers, they have nothing to do with building maintenance or management. A co-owner shouldn't have to crawl into a basement to turn valves, drain water, or replace pipes," the expert stated.
He emphasized that residents pay management companies specifically to ensure this work is done properly. Popenko directly accused certain advisors at the Kyiv City State Administration (KSCA) of lobbying for the idea that residents bear full responsibility.
The goal of this rhetoric, the specialist believes, is to absolve utility structures of blame for the critical condition of infrastructure in thousands of buildings.
"They launched this mantra about co-owner responsibility solely to absolve the KSCA and managers of responsibility for failures in thousands of buildings where essential systems have been destroyed—and to avoid paying billions for capital repairs later," Popenko noted.
The expert also pointed out the legal chaos in the housing sector. Legally, a building is considered joint property, yet people possess no documents confirming this. Furthermore, in 95% of cases, the land beneath the buildings does not belong to the residents either.
"In reality, they own only the air between the walls," he stated.
At the same time, Popenko acknowledged that professional property managers are scarce on the market.
"Professional building management is not a hobby; it requires immense knowledge," the expert concluded, adding that under current conditions, residents are forced to pay more attention to their buildings, as otherwise, no one else cares about them.
Earlier, the expert explained when Ukrainians will forget about blackouts.