Mother of Many Wins Court Case Against Kostanay Mayor Over Small Apartment

A mother of many from Kostanay won a court case against local authorities who had provided her family with an apartment smaller than the legally required size. The Specialized Interdistrict Administrative Court upheld the woman's lawsuit against the city mayor and the city's housing department, as reported by infohub.kz.

According to the official Telegram channel of Kostanay region courts, the plaintiff sought to declare illegal the provision of housing to a large family with an area of 77.7 square meters. The court ordered the defendants to allocate housing for a family of seven in accordance with the requirements of paragraph 1 of Article 75 of the Law "On Housing Relations."

The court explained that this provision requires providing housing from the state housing fund at a rate of no less than 15 and no more than 18 square meters of usable area per person, but no less than a one-room apartment or a room in a dormitory. This norm is mandatory and must be observed by the administrative body regardless of whether the citizen has expressed consent to a specific apartment.

For a family of seven, the minimum housing area is 105 square meters, and the maximum is 126. Therefore, the provided apartment of 77.7 square meters is 27.3 square meters below the legal minimum.

The court also took into account that at the time the housing commission considered the matter, the plaintiff was more than 22 weeks pregnant, as the child was born 11 days later. The provisions of Part 5 of Article 75 of the Law require that when determining the size of housing provided, the presence of a woman's pregnancy over 22 weeks be taken into account.

Furthermore, the court considered the plaintiff's arguments that at the time of signing the lease agreement, she had been discharged from the maternity hospital with her newborn (premature) baby, was in a vulnerable position, and signed the agreement under extreme housing need.

The court concluded that after a citizen is classified into a legally defined preferential category and the state decides to provide housing, the mandatory area norm cannot be reduced by administrative discretion, housing fund shortages, technical database conditions, or the consent of the needy citizen to the only proposed option.

The court decision has not yet entered into legal force.