- April 20, 2024
You can find rental-free offers on the primary and secondary markets. They concern flats in housing communities. From a formal point of view, the landlord does not pay rent for the apartment, but only pays the maintenance costs of the apartment and the common areas, e.g. cleaning charges for staircases and advance payments for repairs.
Rent-free housing means housing with no obligation to pay rent. The landlord is obliged to pay only the bills related to the maintenance of his apartment (electricity, gas, water, utilities) and the common parts of the building (the amount depends on the amount of the owner's share in the joint ownership of the joint property). Such charges include, for example, garbage collection, advances for lift repairs and maintenance, cleaning of property and staircases, collective antenna charges, caretaker's fees and heating. These amounts can be reduced by cleaning and repairing minor defects yourself. In this way the costs will be reduced as much as possible and the fees shared between the owners will apply only to electricity and heating bills in the stairwell.
The advantage of rent-free housing is that the community can earn an income. This income can come from, for example, renting the facade of a building for advertising. The profit from such a lease can be used by residents to cover the cost of maintaining the property.
Rent-free flat owners often have to deal with activities such as clearing snow or looting leaves on the property themselves. This solution is financially beneficial, because the residents do not have to pay the caretaker, but require time and work of their own. Older and less physically fit people will have to hire someone to replace them, which may ultimately be a more expensive option than paying the caretaker together. Another issue is the lack of agreement between neighbours. Firefighting can make it difficult to carry out an efficient renovation and reach a consensus on how to organise a schedule for cleaning the cage, mowing the grass and sweeping the sidewalk. Avoidance of liability and failure to respect community rules can even lead to the loss of property.
Low charges for housing usually mean a small advance on the repair fund. This means that in case of a necessity to repair the roof, the residents are obliged to cover the costs of the repair themselves. Although renovations are not a regular expense, they have a dramatic impact on the cost of living.
