Quasi-Commercial Housing Renting: Experience of Doctrinal Understanding and Analysis of Legislative Decisions

The article examines the legal norms governing the rental relations of residential premises owned by municipal and state legal entities that were not transferred to the jurisdiction of local governments as a result of changes in the form of ownership or liquidation of these organizations. There are practically no serious full‑scale studies of the new contractual structure provided for in Part 2 of Article 7 of the Federal Law “On the Enactment of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation” in the legal literature, which seems unjustified. The purpose of the study is to analyze the legal regulation of the lease agreement for residential premises that were located in buildings owned by state or municipal enterprises or state or municipal institutions, were used as dormitories or office buildings and were not transferred to the jurisdiction of local governments as a result of changes in ownership or liquidation of these enterprises or institutions, but were provided to individuals for accommodation. The article is based on the universal method of scientific knowledge, general scientific (interdisciplinary) methods (structural and functional analysis, legal and dogmatic method, methods of interpretation of legal norms and classification), legal (private scientific) methods (historical and legal, comparative law, interpretation of legal norms, legal and dogmatic, interdisciplinary). The author systematically analyzes the contractual structure formed by the legislator, aimed at ensuring compliance with the constitutional housing rights of citizens living in the residential premises in question. The signs, parties, essential conditions, form and content of the investigated employment contract, its features and place in the system of contracts are revealed. It is concluded that there are no significant constitutive features that allow us to summarize the formation of a new type of residential lease agreement in Russian law and, as a result, the need to recognize this agreement as a special type of commercial lease agreement. For scientific and practical purposes, it is proposed to refer to a new type of commercial lease agreement as a “quasi‑commercial lease of residential premises”.