A Kazakh citizen who was denied a repeat allocation of housing payments to buy a second apartment appealed to the Constitutional Court — and failed to have the decision overturned, infohub.kz reports.
The Constitutional Court's press service explained that it received a petition to verify the constitutionality of a provision stipulating that housing payments for acquiring residential property may be used only once.
The petition was prompted by the denial of a repeat housing payment to a law enforcement officer. The applicant had previously purchased a one-room apartment using a mortgage loan and housing payments. After the loan was fully repaid, the payments were terminated. When applying for a new mortgage loan to buy a two-room apartment, the applicant was denied the payments. Courts of first and appellate instances upheld the denial as lawful.
The applicant argued that the ban on reusing housing payments violated constitutional guarantees of housing provision and the principle of equality before the law and the courts.
The Constitutional Court clarified that the state creates conditions for providing citizens with housing, and the procedure for granting housing support to certain categories of citizens is determined by law, taking into account the state's economic and financial capabilities. Housing payments are provided from budget funds in lieu of official housing and may be used to acquire residential property. The law provides for a one-time exercise of this right.
The applicant had exercised this opportunity by purchasing an apartment using housing payments. After the mortgage loan was fully repaid, the payments were terminated, not suspended. Legislation does not provide for their resumption for the repeated acquisition of residential property in the same locality.
At the same time, the applicant retains the possibility of receiving official housing, taking into account family composition, or housing payments for rental housing in another region upon transfer to a new duty station.
The establishment by law of the conditions for providing housing payments and their one-time use does not in itself indicate a violation of the applicant's constitutional rights, the Constitutional Court concluded.