Novosibirsk Townhouse Residents Must Pay Dacha Fees
For more than 10 years, the Uyutny microdistrict has been part of the Ozyorny settlement. Both apartment buildings, townhouses, and even cottages stand on the land of the Mochnishchensky Selsoviet. But initially, the land plot here was allocated for dachas.
Residents of cottages, townhouses, and even apartment buildings built on municipal land discovered that they must pay fees for the maintenance of common property in the SNT — and were quite surprised. People were even more shocked when they realized that courts side not with the debtors but protect the interests of the gardening cooperative. NGS journalist listened to dissatisfied residents of the Novosibirsk settlement Ozyorny and the chairperson of the SNT and studied court cases.
There are also cottages in Uyutny, but most of them were bought by people as housing on municipal land, and they found themselves in close interaction with the DNT, and later the SNT, when they had already settled into their new place.
Debtors
In 2023, a sudden warming at the end of March effectively turned the microdistrict into Venice. According to dissatisfied interlocutors of NGS, the cause was irregular snow removal, meaning poor work by SNT SN «Afghanistan Veteran».
In 2015, Novosibirsk resident Alexey Khabibrakhmanov and his wife bought a house under construction in the Ozyorny settlement of the Mochnishchensky Selsoviet (rural council) of Novosibirsk region. The house with a small plot of land, on the territory of a municipal entity and near Novosibirsk, seemed a good option to the man. He immediately concluded direct contracts with Gorvodokanal (city water utility), the regional waste operator, and other service providers. Then it turned out there was another utility expense, and it greatly surprised Alexey.
According to Marina Shepel, she and the SNT she leads work solely within the law, and numerous court decisions that held that involuntary dacha residents had to pay fees confirm this.
«Agreements appeared <…> that every month you need to pay 1,200 rubles ($14 at current rates) for some DNT «Afghanistan Veteran» to keep the roads clean, change light bulbs, do something else, while actually being not a management organization but just a DNT <…>. I was not a member of this DNT, my house was not on its territory, and I had never heard of it before that moment,» said Alexey.
According to the Rusprofile service, the DNT «Afghanistan Veteran» was registered in 2009. In 2021, the organization«s name changed from DNT »Afghanistan Veteran« to SNT SN »DNT Afghanistan Veteran« (Gardening Non-Profit Partnership of Property Owners). A few years earlier, the main activity of the legal entity became management of non-residential property for a fee or on a contractual basis. According to Rusprofile, the organization has no license for such activities.
The founders of the legal entity until 2022 were Konstantin Solomichev, Boris Shepel, and Natalia Yakovenko. As of today, there are no founders (from a legal standpoint, all members are founders of such non-profit partnerships). The chairman of the board is Marina Shepel. As of the end of 2025, the partnership reported revenue of 126,000 rubles ($1,500 at current rates) and zero profit.
The man realized with some surprise: initially, the land next to the plot on which his house was built was indeed allocated for the DNT, and some local residents are even its members. But how this all relates to his house (according to the Novosibirsk resident, the cost initially included the laid communications), he genuinely did not understand. He refused to sign the contract with the DNT «Afghanistan Veteran»: the terms seemed opaque to him, and the chairperson was unwilling to make changes to the document. That was the end of it — for the next 10 years. Alexey regularly paid his bills for electricity, water, and garbage removal. Until he received a claim, and then a lawsuit.
«They accused me of unjust enrichment: those 1,200 rubles supposedly for 10 years,» complained the Novosibirsk resident. «The DNT claims that I should pay them for the transit of networks through the plots, which they lease from the LLC «Zemlyane» (Earthlings), which seems affiliated with the DNT.»
According to Rusprofile, LLC «Zemlyane» was registered on February 24, 2012, in Novosibirsk. The main activity of the company is listed as buying and selling own property.
The founders of the company are Vasily Bodenko (50%), Marina Shepel (the same person who is the chairperson of the ex-DNT) (35%), and Eduard Lazarev (15%). The company is managed by Arkady Kozlov. As of the end of last year, «Zemlyane» had revenue of 12 million rubles ($141,200 at current rates) and a net loss of 37,000 rubles.
Alexey had a number of questions: why, having bought housing in a municipal entity, should he interact with a mysterious DNT? How did it happen that this DNT leases private communications (and in fact, these communications belong to the DNT chairperson), and an unrelated person must pay for them? And ultimately, what is going on in Ozyorny? And he is not the only one.
The new part of Ozyorny began to be built up not only with cottages and townhouses but also with apartment buildings. Small, two-story at most, three-story, but definitely collective dwellings. And their residents, like Alexey, had no idea that when buying apartments, even in the suburbs, they were entering into a relationship with the DNT.
«We haven«t paid anything yet, I looked at the calculation, but the DNT has some meeting protocol of its members where there is a clause that multi-story buildings should also pay (a copy of the protocol is available to NGS — ed. note). The amount came to 2,700 rubles ($32 at current rates) [per owner], and how it came about is unclear,» said Anton, a resident of one such house in the Uyutny microdistrict. «Actually, we pay the management company, we have two management companies, »Sovetskaya« and »Prometheus«. [Also] we pay for water, gas, electricity, and heating. What else I should pay for, frankly, I don»t understand.»
However, the courts clearly did not share the same position as Alexey and Anton. NGS journalist examined at least five civil cases of unjust enrichment, in which the defendants are or were Alexey and his wife«s neighbors living in cottages and townhouses. Their decisions are similar, as if written from the same template (literally, down to the commas), and are based on the fact that even if you are not a member of the partnership, you still have to pay for common property. This is indeed stipulated in Law 217-FZ, which governs gardening and dacha non-profit associations, and has a logical explanation: otherwise, members of partnerships would massively leave them, and there would be literally nothing to maintain the common property of the members.
But the residents of Ozyorny had a logical question: is it even legal, not just that they somehow have to pay the DNT (or rather, today«s SNT SN), but its very existence?
Evolution of the DNT
The land near the Ozyorny settlement of Mochnishchensky Selsoviet was allocated in 2011, free of charge, from agricultural land for dacha construction to the legal entity DNT «Afghanistan Veteran» (a copy of the order signed by the head of the Department of Property and Land Relations of Novosibirsk Region Roman Shilokhvostov dated August 26, 2011, is available to the editorial board; the list of citizens who became members of the DNT was not disclosed). The legal entity itself was registered two years earlier, in June 2009.
In 2012, plots in the DNT began to be sold. On the NGS forum, a thread still exists in which a profile clearly registered for this purpose (the user did not post in other discussions), zemlyane_nsk, began offering plots for purchase, promising «all necessary engineering communications for comfortable year-round living,» some of which (for example, city water supply) had already been built. Even then, active forum participants had questions: was this an attempt to develop land allocated on preferential terms, and if it was a non-profit partnership, why was the mysterious LLC «Zemlyane» selling the plots? The platform turned out to be too toxic for advertising, and the forum thread quickly dried up.
In 2013, members of the partnership gathered for an extraordinary meeting (a copy of the protocol is available to the editorial board) at which several issues were discussed. Two of them turned out to be very important for future conflicts. First, they decided that owners of future apartment buildings would pay for the use of communications laid on its territory, and second, they mentioned that they had petitioned the village council to include the partnership«s lands within the settlement.
In 2014, the lands indeed became part of the Mochnishchensky Selsoviet as settlement lands, and the DNT «Afghanistan Veteran» was renamed to «Uyutny Quarter», which was confirmed by a resolution of the village council administration No. 292 of August 21 of that year.
By that time, the former DNT existed more conceptually than physically: it had no common land or common property.
«In March 2021, it suddenly got warm. The roads were not cleared, everything was flowing, and I directly contacted the administration of the Mochnishchensky Selsoviet requesting equipment. I received replies that it was not their land and not their roads, <…> I appealed via the governor«s reception office to find out who owned the land,» said Alexey and Anton»s neighbor Yevgeny (his full details are known to the editorial board and are not published at his request). «All the roads in our area are parts of one plot, and it belongs to Novosibirsk Region.»
It turned out that after leasing the land for 11 months, the «veterans» did not renew the lease agreement, Yevgeny said. All that remained unsold of the 33 hectares of free land reverted to the state property of the region (a confirming response from the Department of Property and Land Relations of Novosibirsk Region is available to the NGS editorial board). The SNT SN also had no common property: the communications belonged to «Zemlyane», and the legal entity did not even have a conventional garden office building where the «veterans» could gather, according to NGS«s interlocutors.
In May 2026, the Arbitration Court of Novosibirsk Region settled the dispute over who should maintain the «veteran» roads (the decision is published in the arbitration case file) and at the same time established several facts important for local residents.
«On the DNT lands, 267 residential and apartment buildings have been erected. The court directly stated that the territory had completely lost its dacha status and had become a residential settlement with a municipal public street and road network,» said Yevgeny. «The law on dacha residents cannot be applied to residents of an ordinary settlement whose roads are recognized as public and whose water supply networks belong to the village council. <…> It turns out that over those 10 years that I had a contract with the DNT, in which they wrote that they clean the road, I somehow had to pay for the maintenance of federal property.»
Yevgeny was also confused by the main activity of «Afghanistan Veteran» — management of residential property for a fee or on a contractual basis, which means, the man is confident, Marina Shepel cannot appeal to Law 217; her work must be subject to the Housing Code, which directly prohibits collecting money from people without a protocol and a general meeting.
All of NGS«s interlocutors were also interested in the legality of the fact that the chairperson of SNT SN »DNT Veteran« effectively leases communications to herself: Marina Shepel not only leads the former DNT but is also one of the three founders of LLC »Zemlyane«. And indeed, if all the doubts and complaints of dissatisfied residents of Ozyorny were included in this publication, its volume would rival »War and Peace«.
Opinion of the Chairperson
It is easy to guess that the chairperson of SNT SN «DNT Afghanistan Veteran» holds a completely different position. In short, it boils down to a simple idea: the roads still need to be cleared, and debts to the legal entity that built the communications must be paid. Without this, life in the microdistrict would practically come to a halt.
«Those people who received the land turned out to be unprepared for the fact that it needs to be developed. It is not enough to get the land. Technical conditions are needed to provide it with water and other utilities. They need to be built, acquire technical conditions from the Regional Electric Networks (RES), from Gorvodokanal, or drill a well, which is also not a cheap option. Many were not ready for this, and development was financed through investment funds,» said Marina Shepel. «Housing here was relatively inexpensive only because “wild developers” did not invest in networks but only bought additional connection points.»
According to Marina Shepel, most of the fees indeed go to maintain the networks, and people actually have to pay little: the fee of 1,200 rubles per month for residents of townhouses has not been raised since 2013, despite rising prices.
«[These amounts] include technical losses, consumption of common areas, say, street lighting, and sewer operation. <…> The pumps run on electricity, and the utility tariff is constantly increasing. <…> It is simply impossible to sustain such a production, to maintain the system. There really are not enough funds anymore. Under the law, owners who use the property are obliged to maintain it,» Marina Shepel appealed again to the same «dacha» Law 217. «Maintenance of networks and major repairs are exactly what [people pay for] in any residential building. For us, this is combined into a single fee.»
She did not name the generous investor, but when directly asked if it was the company LLC «Zemlyane», she answered affirmatively. Marina Shepel sees nothing strange or suspicious in leasing communications, the sewage pumping station, and other pipelines from herself.
«This question [about possible affiliation of the two legal entities] people also asked the court, and the court says there is nothing suspicious here. If a person had the means and invested in networks because no one else wanted to, why doesn«t he have the right to recover his expenses? My husband was one of the organizers of this DNT, and when he passed away in 2021, so that the DNT would not freeze, I was elected in an accelerated manner. <…> I built these networks, I designed this settlement, because I am an architect, and this is, one might say, my creation,» stated Marina Shepel.
The Same and the Courts
According to Marina Shepel, courts regularly side with SNT SN «Afghanistan Veteran» and also believe that the owner must pay for the maintenance of common property. Decisions from district courts (such lawsuits are filed at the place of registration of the defendant, so now even the Ordynsky District knows about the Ozyorny settlement).
«We have had positive practice since 2019; we force people to pay through court. If we did not have the right to take money from people for maintaining networks, we would not have won a single trial,» she is confident.
The question of what decisions courts will make when the Arbitration Court«s decision comes into force and proves that the territory is no longer a dacha area and the ex-DNT has no land of its own remains open. For now, residents of Ozyorny have to pay.
Some, like Alexey Khabibrakhmanov, are currently in the process of litigation; others have already lost cases of unjust enrichment.
«Many people want to pay, but they need to understand what they are paying for and see the result,» noted Maria, a Siberian woman whose elderly mother lives in Uyutny and who, in an attempt to appeal the decision not in her favor, went all the way to the regional court — and lost. «The administration [of the village council] obligated the DNT to install storm drains — three years have passed, and they still haven«t been installed. They only collect money.»
Even after parting with the money (amounting to about 150,000 rubles ($1,800 at current rates), according to the woman), Maria decided to continue the fight against «Afghanistan Veteran»:
«Our global goal is to get rid of the DNT. We are ready to pay even more; 1,200 rubles is a small amount. But the feeling that you are not being cheated is priceless,» the Siberian woman stated.
In 2023, NGS already wrote about the uncomfortable problems of Uyutny. Then the microdistrict was flooded so that water entered the first floors of townhouses. Their residents blamed irregular snow removal and the SNT chairperson, while the chairperson blamed non-paying debtors.
