CasusLegalHigher-court case-law corpus
← All reviewsHome
Resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of 7 July 2026 No. 46-П in the case concerning the review of the constitutionality of paragraphs 2, 42.1 and 43 of the Rules for the Provision of Utility Services to Owners and Users of Premises in Apartment Buildings and Residential Buildings, as well as formulas 3.1 and 3.7 of Annex No. 2 to those Rules, in connection with complaints by citizens L.K. Terekhina and D.V. Yukhnev. The provisions were held constitutional as interpreted to mean that the readings of individual meters in premises with substantially lower heat consumption are not applied to premises without such meters, while the amount of thermal energy for those premises is determined as the difference between the readings of the building-wide meter and the individual meters.
The titles of the acts mentioned are clickable: the link opens the full text of the act in CasusLegal.
L.K. Terekhina owns a share in the title to an underground parking facility in an apartment building in St Petersburg; D.V. Yukhnev owns an apartment in an apartment building in the city of Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod Region, as common property. Both buildings are equipped with collective (building-wide) thermal-energy meters. In September 2019, L.K. Terekhina, together with the other co-owners, installed an individual thermal-energy metering unit in the parking facility, and under a thermal-energy supply agreement concluded in November of the same year, the charge for heating the parking facility was calculated on the basis of its readings. In accordance with statutory requirements, D.V. Yukhnev’s apartment is equipped with an individual heat source (a gas boiler) and disconnected from the building-wide heating system; in October 2018, an individual metering unit was installed in non-residential premises (the basement) of his building, while the charge was calculated on the basis of the building-wide meter’s readings, according to the applicant’s share in the common ownership of the common property.
Subsequently, the metering procedure changed in both buildings: heat consumption began to be calculated under the fifth paragraph (formerly the fourth paragraph) of paragraph 42.1 of the Rules and formulas 3.1 and 3.7 of Annex No. 2 thereto, that is, using the readings not only of the building-wide meter but also of an individual meter located in non-residential premises (the parking facility and basement), even though those premises were heated substantially less than most others. The courts held those calculations lawful, pointing to the absence of legal grounds for heat-supply organisations to apply a different procedure. L.K. Terekhina alleged that her rights were violated by the absence of a special procedure for calculating heating charges for non-residential premises equipped with an individual meter and by the application of formulas that disregarded the specific characteristics of their temperature conditions, thereby overstating the amount of thermal energy attributable to the common property. D.V. Yukhnev challenged the fifth paragraph of paragraph 42.1 of the Rules in conjunction with the sixth and eighth paragraphs of paragraph 2 and formulas 3.1 and 3.7, on the ground that they required the owner of premises disconnected from central heating to pay substantially excessive charges for utility resources used to maintain the common property; he also raised the question of whether the definition of a building-wide meter complied with Article 5 of the Federal Law “On Ensuring the Uniformity of Measurements”.
The Constitutional Court proceeded from the premise that the Constitution of the Russian Federation, by establishing the aims of the welfare state and everyone’s right to housing, requires public authorities to create conditions enabling citizens to obtain utility resources in sufficient quantity and of proper quality (Article 7, Part 1; Article 40, Parts 1 and 2). The legislature and executive authorities must maintain a reasonable balance between the property interests of all participants in the relevant relations, including when determining the amount of utility resources consumed in individual premises of an apartment building and the charges levied for them; regulation must comply with the principles of legal certainty, fairness, a balance between a citizen’s rights and obligations, and the protection of trust in the law and state action. The use of inaccurate data on resources consumed and the unfair allocation of charges may infringe the constitutional guarantees of the inviolability of property (Article 35, Part 1, of the Constitution of the Russian Federation), which also extend to the provision of utility services.
The Court recalled that the fair allocation of building-maintenance costs is ensured by Part 2 of Article 39 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation, read together with Part 1 of Article 158 of the same Code and Article 249 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which establish that an owner’s mandatory expenses must correspond to the owner’s share in the common ownership. Including the cost of thermal energy consumed to heat the common property in the charge for the heating utility service is, in principle, consistent with the constitutional requirement of equality and the provisions on the economic and social solidarity of citizens. Current legislation gives priority to determining consumption by meter readings, since meters individualise the amount consumed and the amount of the charge; the good-faith conduct of owners and users, expressed in installing, safeguarding, timely replacing and properly operating individual meters, requires support and encouragement.
At the same time, metering thermal energy in apartment buildings involves objective technical difficulties related to the design of internal building communications and the layout of premises, which does not always permit the installation of individual meters. The use of a calculation method is not, in itself, inconsistent with the constitutional principles governing the calculation of utility charges and is intended to determine an amount of thermal energy consumed that approximates the actual amount; the margin of error inherent in that method is permissible within known limits. However, by its regulatory characteristics, the calculation method must ensure not only an adequate calculation of the total cost of heating the building but also a fair and proportionate allocation of that cost, without producing results that are manifestly inconsistent with the actual consumption of thermal energy in particular premises.
With respect to the applicants’ cases, the Court found that using the readings of individual meters located only in poorly heated non-residential premises led to a substantial understatement of the amount of thermal energy actually used to heat premises not equipped with such meters; under formula 3.1 of Annex No. 2 to the Rules, the unaccounted-for energy is included in the amount of energy used to heat the common property, substantially overstating that figure. As a result, the applicants were required to bear substantially excessive costs for heating the common property, while the heating of their premises was paid for according to the heat actually consumed. Owners of other premises connected to the central heating system and not equipped with individual meters avoid this burden, because the overpayment for heating common-use areas is offset by an underpayment for heating their own premises, allowing them to obtain a financial benefit at the expense of individual owners.
The Court emphasised that this was not a technical defect or an insignificant error in the calculation method, but a substantial and systematic distortion of heat-consumption figures and the resulting significant disparity in the allocation of charges to the detriment of individual owners, which gave the issues raised constitutional significance. Formulas 3.1 and 3.7 do not, in themselves, produce such consequences in the absence of a special consumption pattern in premises equipped with individual meters; however, they are normatively integrated into the fifth paragraph of paragraph 42.1 of the Rules, which predetermines their application to the situations under review as well. Given that apartment buildings with vertical, apartment-by-apartment internal heating distribution, which does not permit the installation of individual meters in most premises, constitute a substantial part of the housing stock, the violations identified may recur.
The Court therefore adopted a constitutional-law interpretation under which the challenged provisions do not permit the readings of individual meters to be used to calculate heat consumption in premises not equipped with such meters if consumption in the former premises is substantially lower by virtue of applicable regulatory requirements or energy-saving measures adopted, and require that, in such circumstances, heat consumption in heated premises without individual meters be calculated on the basis of the total floor area of all such premises, including common-use premises, and the difference between the total amount of thermal energy recorded by the building-wide meter and the amount recorded by the individual meters. Any other interpretation would conflict with Articles 7 (Part 1), 17 (Part 3), 19 (Part 1), 35 (Part 1), 40 (Parts 1 and 2) and 75.1 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The proceedings were discontinued insofar as they concerned the sixth and eighth paragraphs of paragraph 2, the other provisions of paragraph 42.1 (apart from the fifth paragraph), and the third paragraph of paragraph 43 of the Rules.
The reasoning relies on legal positions previously developed by the Constitutional Court, including Resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of 10 July 2018 No. 30-П, Resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of 27 April 2021 No. 16-П.
Owners and holders of premises equipped with individual thermal-energy meters, as well as of premises disconnected from the central heating system and heated by an autonomous source, are protected against the hidden portion of building-wide costs being shifted onto them. If heat consumption in such premises is substantially lower than in the other premises of the building, their readings may no longer serve as a benchmark for calculating heat consumption in premises not equipped with meters and, accordingly, for determining the amount of thermal energy attributed to heating the common property.
For heat-supply organisations, managing organisations and other providers of utility services, the calculation algorithm changes in buildings where the entire building is equipped with a building-wide meter, while one or more, but not all, premises are equipped with individual meters, and the heat-consumption patterns differ substantially. In this configuration, the amount of thermal energy attributable to heated premises without individual meters is determined as the difference between the readings of the building-wide meter and the sum of the individual-meter readings, allocated on the basis of the total floor area of all those premises, including common-use premises.
For the courts, the constitutional-law meaning identified for the fifth paragraph of paragraph 42.1 and the first paragraph of paragraph 43 of the Rules, as well as for formulas 3.1 and 3.7 of Annex No. 2 thereto, is universally binding and excludes any other interpretation. The assertion that the provider lacks legal grounds to apply a different calculation procedure where a building contains a single premises with an individual meter may no longer justify refusing to protect an owner’s rights if application of the general procedure produces a substantial distortion in the allocation of charges.
With respect to the Government of the Russian Federation, the Court noted its authority to amend the existing regulation to ensure the fair and proportionate allocation of charges for heating utility services in buildings with the relevant configuration, including buildings with vertical, apartment-by-apartment internal heating distribution. The calculation procedure prescribed by the Court applies until the Government of the Russian Federation establishes a special calculation procedure that differs from the procedure provided for by the challenged provisions.
The judicial decisions in the cases of L.K. Terekhina and D.V. Yukhnev, issued on the basis of the challenged provisions as interpreted inconsistently with the constitutional-law meaning identified, are subject to reopening in accordance with the established procedure, taking into account paragraph 1 of the operative part. At the same time, the Court expressly stipulated that such reopening does not entail recalculating heating utility charges for other owners (holders) of residential premises in apartment buildings: restoring the applicants’ rights does not entail the retrospective reallocation of charges previously assessed among the other owners.
This analysis was prepared on the basis of the CasusLegal database (case law of the highest courts of the Russian Federation). The titles of the cited decisions link to their full texts in CasusLegal.