Proposals Regarding the Laws on Housing-Construction Cooperatives

The fundamental legal document regulating the activity of the housing-construction cooperative in the RSFSR is the Model Charter approved by decree No. 1143 of the RSFSR Council of Ministers, October 2, 1965 (SP RSFSR, 1965, no. 23, item 144). As a consequence of the broad scope of cooperative housing construction, life has posed many new questions that are not regulated by the Model Charter or require changes in provisions of the law. Some of its provisions are actually in conflict with the prevailing legislation. For example, Point 3 states that the charter of a cooperative adopted by a meeting shall be recorded in the housing administration (or department) of municipal services of the executive committee of the local soviet, whereas, according to Article 19d of the RSFSR law "On the District Soviet of Working People's Deputies of the RSFSR" and Article 16 of the RSFSR law "On the City and Urban District Soviet of Working People's Deputies of the RSFSR," recording of a charter is by the executive committee. Point 7 of the charter forbids government enterprises from participating with their funds in the construction of housing by a cooperative, while in accordance with the joint decree of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers (Pravda, September 18, 1977), the councils of ministers of the union republics have the right to permit the heads of state farms and other state enterprises in agriculture, water-control enterprises, and the Agricultural Equipment Association, located in rural places, to make good, under certain conditions, up to 50 percent of the state credit issued to equipment operators who are members of housing-construction cooperatives.