From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 4/18/2005 3:55 AM
Monday, April 18, 2005.
Smothered by State Care
By Yevgenia Albats
Whenever the Russian state announces that it is going to take care of me as a citizen, my heart skips a beat. I know what it means: My purse will be yet another several hundred dollars lighter, and dozens more hours of my time will be spent in line at the offices of bureaucrats.
Let me tell you exactly how the state actually takes care of people.
Say you have to register your inheritance, of which an apartment is the most important part. And say you have the simplest possible case under review: All the necessary paperwork was done beforehand, and there are no other claimants to the estate.
You collect all the spravki, which will set you back $50 to $200 depending on how urgently you need the papers, and you arrive at the office of the state-appointed notary who is responsible for your district. Of course, you don't have a choice. This is the only notary assigned by the state who can make your inheritance rights official.
Sure enough, there is a line, predominantly of women in their late 60s dressed in black. Your number in the line is 395. But you have an alternative: You can notarize copies of your papers with a non-state notary for $100 to $200 and send them by registered mail within six months of the loss of a loved one, as required by law. And this is what you do.
You come back to the notary several months later. You have a book with you. You get in to see the assistant after exactly three hours of waiting. You are told that your papers cannot be processed because they are not valid. Why? The law under which you privatized your apartment back in 1993 was changed in 1995. The old law did not require you to include minors in the ownership papers, but the new one does. You have to go to the local court to correct the problem. You hire a lawyer who charges $300 for writing a court appeal, and three months later you have a court decision in hand.
You get back to the notary. Another two hours, and you are in. His assistant laughs at you: It is not over yet. What now? You have to register the new title based on the court decision in the Moscow Registry Chamber, which is in charge of the entire city's real estate. By now the assistant realizes that you are on the verge of a nervous breakdown. After a helpful 500 rubles, she explains that you stand no chance of getting the necessary registration yourself: "You'd better hire someone who knows the ins and outs."
This is valuable advice. The Moscow Registry Chamber is obliged to certify your papers and provide you with the title if, and only if, all your papers are in good order and up to date. But they never are, as some spravki are valid for only a month. Thus, unless you get your papers registered within a month, you are doomed to start the process all over again. No wonder the Moscow Registry Chamber -- just like any other state agency -- is surrounded by a set of private offices that are ready to help you, but for a buck. You hire a knowledgeable person from a well-established real estate agency and pay $500 for her services. She knows a girl in the chamber who gets things done, for $300 in addition to the official fee. You get back to the notary. No chance. Another knowledgeable real estate agent, personally acquainted with the notary, negotiates a deal on your behalf: The notary agrees to just $300 in addition to the official fees for what should be for free.
You feel special. But don't be too quick to celebrate. After the notary issues you your title, you are obliged to re-register it in the same Moscow Registry Chamber. And don't ask me why.
Now the government has announced that the Justice Ministry will provide state-appointed lawyers to take care of citizens who cannot afford attorneys.
Please, guys, spare us: We cannot afford any more TLC from the state.
Yevgenia Albats is a professor of political science at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2005/04/18/007.html
