Apartment administrator: recurrent explosions in apartment blocks raise questions about lack of regulatory rigour
2025.01.04
For the second year in a row, Vilnius has been rocked by apartment building explosions. Last year, an explosion and fire in the Viršuliškės district killed two people and took almost a year for residents to return to their homes. Today, an explosion rocked an apartment block in the Naujininkai district, where residents have been evacuated and the causes are still under investigation. Tadas Kuznecovas, head of Civinity, a multi-apartment administration and maintenance company in Vilnius, says that maintenance is still under-emphasised and recent events raise questions about the lack of regulation.
Regular maintenance is compulsory, but not everyone does it
To ensure the safety of the occupants of apartment buildings, the law provides for mandatory maintenance of engineering systems such as electricity, fire safety, ventilation, plumbing and sewage in apartment buildings.
This is carried out by the administrator of the apartment building. If the apartment building is managed by an apartment owners’ association, the chairman of the association must organise the technical inspection and repair of the systems.
The person responsible for the maintenance of the apartment block must regularly (at least once every six months) inspect the engineering systems, record the results and inform the residents. In the event of any major deficiencies in the systems, immediate action must be taken to rectify the faults.
According to Mr Kuznetsov, it is still common to find that these duties are carried out in a formal way in order to save maintenance costs in apartment buildings.
There are also cases where the chairpersons of the associations responsible for maintenance are not specialists in the field and therefore do not have the necessary expertise to assess the engineering systems or to make proper arrangements for the selection of a third party.
It is not always clear who is responsible for the operation and leakage of the gas management system in the apartment block
The responsibility for the functioning/tightness of the gas management system in a block of flats may fall on the administrator or the chairman of the association, as well as on the gas supply company, depending on how the limits of responsibility are defined in the case of a particular block of flats.
“In the case of gas system maintenance, it is important for each apartment block to know the limits of responsibility first. The building manager or the chairman of the association should be the person who clearly knows these boundaries and ensures that the gas system is checked regularly,” says the expert.
The owners would be responsible for the engineering systems within the boundaries of the apartment
While the building manager or the chairman of the association is responsible for the operation of the building’s common engineering systems, the owners of the flats are responsible for everything that goes on outside the door of the flat.
“The problem is that the residents themselves, who usually do not have the technical know-how to do it properly, maintain their own household, including the functioning of the engineering systems and compliance with the legal requirements. Moreover, unlike in the case of the housing administrator, there is no control over the apartment owners. This leads to situations where the irresponsible handling of engineering systems in one apartment affects not only the apartment, but also the entire apartment block,” says T. Kuznecovas.
Not all maintenance professionals are insured
Although technical maintenance of engineering systems in apartment buildings is mandatory in Lithuania, the requirements for the professionals who carry it out vary. One of them is compulsory civil liability insurance.
Civil liability insurance is compulsory for administrators of multi-apartment buildings and without it, companies cannot operate. Thus, in the event of an accident and if it turns out that the administrator has not carried out his/her duties properly, the damage caused by the administrator would be compensated by the insurer.
“For example, our activities as administrator are covered by a €1 million insurance policy, which could be used to compensate for damages in the event of a similar disaster,” says Mr Kuznetsov.
Meanwhile, this is not compulsory for housing associations and their presidents. According to Mr Kuznetsov, this is a flawed practice, as both administrators and chairpersons of associations are equally responsible towards the owners of the flats and other premises in a block of flats and other premises, but residents are not equally protected in the event of a disaster.
Awareness of the inhabitants of apartment blocks is also necessary to prevent disasters
Such disasters can occur for different reasons: explosions in apartment buildings can be caused by malfunctioning engineering systems or by careless actions of residents.
The expert stresses that just as important as the appointment of the right maintenance technician is the awareness of the residents of the blocks of flats to monitor their living environment and to react responsibly to it.
“We recently came across a situation where neighbours informed us about a gas canister on their balcony. As you know, the possession and use of gas cylinders in apartments is prohibited. We reacted promptly after receiving such a report, wrote an order to the owner of the apartment to remove the gas cylinder, and informed the responsible authorities,” says T. Kuznecovas.