What to do if your home is destroyed due to hostilities: how to document damage and where to seek help

What is the problem?

For almost two years now, Ukrainians have been living under the constant threat that their homes will be damaged or destroyed as a result of enemy shelling. As of November 2023, more than 170,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged due to hostilities.

At the same time, according to a sociological survey conducted by TI Ukraine in November 2023, 65% of people surveyed whose homes were damaged did not apply for compensation or other assistance.

Why? 37% of them believe that the state should now finance other needs. 26% do not believe that they will receive any help, 13% do not have time to deal with it, 12% believe that there are people who have suffered more and will need more help, 9% do not know how to do it, 8% think that this procedure is very complicated. The share of people who find it difficult to understand what and where to submit is quite large.

"Eighty percent of residents are, unfortunately, ignorant of these issues. Some don't have time, some have other problems, I understand that. When such a critical issue arose, people were in despair because they did not know what to do; they were sent from organization to organization," says Olena Ustinova, head of the initiative group of residents of building 4a Ostafia Dashkevycha Street in the Dniprovskyi district of Kyiv.

The house at 4a Dashkevycha was seriously damaged on the night of December 13, 2023, due to fragments of a Russian ballistic missile that exploded near the house.

At exactly three o'clock that night, the Russians fired ten ballistic missiles at Kyiv. The air forces shot down all of them, but the fragments damaged houses in various parts of the city.

More than 30 residents were injured in the Dniprovskyi district. Some of them received puncture and cut wounds and some needed help due to an acute reaction to stress. Windows were blown out in two apartment buildings, there was a fire on several floors, cars parked in the yard were also burnt. A nearby kindergarten was also badly damaged.

Only by a miracle that night in the 144-apartment building, no one died. We come to this conclusion by talking with Natalia Pedash, one of the residents.

Pedash believes that the only thing that saved her mother, who was sleeping in the room under the windows of which the rocket fragments fell, was the fact that she did not get up from the sofa at the time of the explosions. The window frame flew over her mother's head. Due to the enemy's use of high-speed ballistic missiles, the air raid alarm sounded after the explosion and not before.

"I was sleeping in the room facing the other side, and when I heard the explosions, I ran to my mother. I ran to the room, grabbed the door handle, and at that moment, there was another explosion — this door fell over me, and I was sitting under it, as if in a 'shelter,'" says the resident.

"Look at how it bent the wall. This wall was destroyed, and this one too," Pedash points to the interior walls.

Even the front armored door was blown away by the blast wave. Therefore, Pedash warns that you can hide in the inter-apartment vestibule during alarms, but you should not stand next to or opposite the door.

When the residents were allowed to return to their homes later that same December 13, Pedash, her mother, and their neighbors from the upper floors threw the remnants of their belongings out the window. At some point, it was already possible to enter the house directly through the window from the street: this is how the pile of remnants of windows, doors, furniture, and household appliances of the entrance residents grew.

All the relatives, who promptly came to help, helped to deal with what was left of the windows and furniture. The resident says that even her husband was released from military service for a short time. Utility workers helped to cover the windows with film. The car with the film arrived quickly, around lunchtime on December 13, the residents of the house recall.

Pedash recounts how a specialist came to check the ventilation and asked whether the family had planned to do the repairs. "It was a Russian rocket that repaired us," Pedash answered.

Currently, Pedash is waiting for a correct conclusion about the state of the house to understand whether it is worth at least putting the front door back.

What is the solution?

Probably, most citizens know that an application for damaged property and an application for assistance for damaged housing can be submitted in the Diia digital governance application or on the Diia portal. For this, you must have the rights to the property, or you can do it in the Central Administrative Office or with the help of a notary. To submit an application, the right of ownership of housing must be registered in the State Register of Property Rights.

However, Diia alone may not be enough. Unfortunately, you can get a rejection in Diia. To get a quality document about the technical condition of the building and the need for its repair/reconstruction/demolition, it is necessary to communicate with the local authorities/military administration and the organizations entrusted by the local authorities to conduct technical inspections of buildings.

Also, in addition to basic payments through the eRecovery service, victims can be helped by the community: the local budget can provide for appropriate payments.

Local authorities can also have partnerships with international organizations or foundations that can quickly provide victims with, for example, certain construction materials free of charge.

To effectively communicate with local authorities, affected residents should unite and create an initiative group.

This is particularly emphasized by the residents of the affected house, Ustinova. She is a lawyer by profession and has worked in the utility industry for a long time, so she agreed to help residents with the difficult issues of correctly completing all applications. Residents held a meeting and elected her the head of the house's initiative group.

How does it work?

In the event of a strike, i.e., damage to the residential infrastructure as a result of Russia's aggression, operational services of Kyiv immediately arrive at the scene of the emergency and rescue people, localize and eliminate the consequences.

Residents of the damaged house, with whom Rubryka spoke, unanimously thank all the specialists who helped them during the night and day of December 13. They arrived very quickly and acted very clearly and harmoniously.

The residents themselves make the initial determination of the house's condition when everyone independently submits an application through Diia, but the corresponding act is also drawn up by an organization authorized by the local government.

In Kyiv, for example, district state administrations, within three days after the occurrence of damage, provide information to the Department of Financial Control and Audit to include objects damaged as a result of Russian aggression in the Technical Survey Work Plan. This is stated in the answer given to Rubryka by Borys Rabotnik, director of the Department of Construction and Housing of the Kyiv City State Administration.

The relevant order of the Kyiv City Military Administration (KCMA) determines how the technical inspection of buildings damaged due to military operations should occur. It states that specialists of Kyivexpertyza communal enterprise carry out this technical inspection.

Based on the inspection results, Kyivexpertyza prepares a report on the detected damage and the technical condition of the object and determines whether additional instrumental inspection and verification calculations of the technical condition of the building are necessary.

The first and second entrances of the affected building, December 24, 2023/Photo by Mykola Tymchenko

The report, in accordance with the established procedure, must contain a conclusion on the technical condition, recommendations on further operation or dismantling, as well as, if necessary, information on damaged (destroyed) load-bearing and enclosing structures, engineering systems (with an indication of the degree and extent of damage), principled decisions regarding their reconstruction (reinforcement).

The technical inspection report is also attached to the report, which should contain information about the object's damage category determined by the inspection results.

Rabotnik also reminds that, according to the Cabinet of Ministers' resolution, the term of inspection of a damaged (destroyed) residential object cannot exceed 30 calendar days from the moment of the decision.

In particular, for residents of the damaged building, such an act was drawn up by specialists of the construction laboratory of the Municipal Enterprise Kyivzhitlospetsekspluatsiia. This is where the problems began for residents.

Firstly, they could get a copy of this act only by contacting local official Taras Kryvoruchko, Ustinova said.

Secondly, residents found several inconsistencies, and severe ones, in the act. Residents outlined these inconsistencies in a collective appeal to Kyivzhytlospetsekspluatatsia director Hryhoriy Chmil.

These are the following inconsistencies:

1. The report states that the fire in the house started in the second and third entrances, when in fact, it was the first and second entrances, and this is clearly documented;
2. The act states that the commission members did not get access for a more detailed inspection of the apartments. However, according to the residents, units of the State Emergency Service, after evacuating the residents, unlocked the doors in all the apartments so there was access to them;
3. The most important thing is that according to the conclusion set out in the act, part of the damage is classified as category four, excluding the presence of people in the building. But no one evicted the residents.

Ustinova explains that residents seek a deeper inspection of the technical condition of the house because it depends on whether the house needs repair work, whether it will be a major repair or partial demolition.

"These are such issues that entail criminal liability in the case of negligence. I don't even mention that there may be, God forbid, victims among the residents of our building. We will simply not tolerate a second such blow: 90% of our residents are pensioners and socially vulnerable sections of the population," says Ustinova.

The legal basis for paying compensation to the affected residents is the relevant Law of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers resolution, which allows the victims to file an application online through the eRecovery service in the Diia app.

To receive compensation, the affected homeowner must consent to the commission's home inspection. The commission will actually determine the amount of compensation.

In Kyiv, the commission that makes decisions on the payment of compensation for damaged property was formed in accordance with the order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated May 15, 2023, No. 257. It includes representatives of district state administrations in Kyiv and structural units of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Rabotnik told Rubryka.

He also informed that, accordingly, Kyiv regional state administrations formed commissions to examine privately owned buildings and structures damaged as a result of the military aggression of the Russian Federation.

In particular, in the Dniprovskyi district, the composition of such a commission includes representatives of the structural units of the district administration, and a representative of the Kyivekspertyza is involved. The commission inspects the apartments of residents who reported through the Diia portal or the Administrative Services Center.

As of December 28, 2023, when Rubryka received an answer to its request, four apartments in the damaged building were inspected. According to Rabotnik, "all discovered damages were recorded, a checklist was filled out and submitted to the commission for consideration to make a decision on the compensation."

Rabotnik also informs that the sequence of applications accepted for consideration is determined automatically by the Register of Damaged and Destroyed Property software in the order of receipt of information messages, taking into account the defined priority right.
Important conditions for providing compensation — information on the ownership of the damaged object is entered in the State Register of Real Property Rights; the damaged object has not yet been repaired.

This is also a problem because, for example, many of the residents of the damaged building have nowhere to go, and they put in at least a door to continue living in the building. Therefore, obviously, they lose the opportunity to receive help. Ustinova says that she also received a rejection from Diia, but the reason for this has not yet been found.

Regarding the possibility of receiving additional assistance from the city authorities, at the beginning of 2023, the mayor of Kyiv issued an order according to which, in 2023, Kyiv residents who found themselves in difficult life circumstances as a result of the damage or destruction of a residential building (apartment) as a result of Russian aggression, could receive targeted financial assistance "in the amount of 10,000 thousand hryvnias to one of the family members of the household owners".

We met with the residents of the damaged building on a day off when they came to a meeting with Taras Kryvoruchko, the official of the Kyiv City Council.

As the head of the initiative group, Ustinova, noted during the conversation, he turned out to be the only city elected official who fulfilled the duties assigned to him by the city residents and did not remain aloof from the difficult situation in which the residents of this and other affected houses in the Dniprovskyi district found themselves.

Kryvoruchko helped the residents with obtaining a copy of the house inspection report, raised the issue of gas connection with the district administration (as of the time of our communication, the gas supply to the house had not yet been restored), and also organized free lunches for residents who were temporarily left without gas and opportunities cook food on it. In addition, he sent his own requests to the authorities regarding issues that concern residents.

He also informed that residents can submit relevant documents (certificates about damage to the house, disability, belonging to other preferential categories, etc.) and applications for receiving assistance from his fund. Unfortunately, the funds will be at their best at the end of January 2024 because the official exhausted his fund for 2023 as early as October 2023.

As Kryvoruchko explained to the residents of the building and Rubryka, the fund consists of money allocated to each official in the city budget for "fulfillment of voter assignments, certain assistance, and some other useful things."

"For example, in 2023, I installed uninterrupted power supply and autonomous lighting in 13 educational institutions," Kryvoruchko explained.

The official also noted that the funds were used to pay benefits, and a million hryvnias were transferred to the hospital for soldiers' prosthetics. Kryvoruchko's fund was exhausted in October 2023, so he will be able to help the affected residents already from the 2024 budget.

"I will plan for 2024 so that I have a reserve in the account so that in such situations, it is possible to solve it more quickly," the official assured.

Kryvoruchko reported the encouraging news that thanks to Kyiv's partnership with many international organizations, and in particular the Red Cross, the Dniprovska district administration has already signed an agreement as of the end of December 2023 so that international donors will help install new windows for the affected house in early 2024.

Advice from the official

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Kryvoruchko advises residents to be active in such situations:

"To appeal to all the services that are available to them and work with people in this area: the local council and administration, the social protection department, the State Emergency Service, local authorities who were elected from this district, so that everyone is included in the recovery assistance."

What does Olena Ustinova advise people in a similar situation:

• to gather as a community of the house, choose an initiative group;
• to authorize at least three, and possibly more, members of this initiative group to resolve issues with the district state administration, Administrative Services Centers, the Department of Social Protection of the Population, as well as communicate with the media, etc.;
• to find an official who is elected from your district. On their part, they can direct parliamentary requests, which can shorten the response from organizations,
• to seek to obtain a certificate of technical inspection of the house, and relevant conclusions
• to enlist the support of lawyers.

"That is to say, we need to join together to prepare documents and go to local self-government bodies. Unfortunately, this takes a lot of time," Ustinova explains.

It is also important that the residents have their own apartment building manager. Actually, interaction with other organizations should take place through them. At the time of the strike, the residents of the affected house had not yet chosen it, so then it had to be done urgently so that the issue of returning the gas to the house could be resolved as soon as possible because it is the manager who must conclude a contract with Kyivgaz for the maintenance of domestic gas networks.

"In our house, for example, I am the only lawyer, so I consult people who live here free of charge. The same should be done to others: cooperate and find volunteer lawyers who will help free of charge or for a nominal fee to help prepare the necessary papers," Ustinova suggests.

At the same time, she, like other residents, is confused: "The second year of the full-scale invasion is already approaching, and our authorities have not yet developed clear algorithms for actions in such a situation. We know that more than one house was damaged, but people continue to go through all the circles of the bureaucracy — seek some acts, conclusions, documents, material assistance."

A difficult situation has also arisen with the restoration of the gas supply: even after resolving the issue with the manager, the residents cannot hope for the restoration of gas until the windows in the building are glazed. This is what was explained to them in Kyivgaz, said Ustinova. Therefore, residents continue to go to the authorities almost every day to somehow speed up the resolution of urgent issues. As of the beginning of January 2024, their house is without gas, the cold enters the house through the film-covered windows, and the elevators do not work.

What are the conclusions? Despite the stress and possible injuries, residents should not fold their hands and ensure that their house is inspected correctly, that the acts do not contain inconsistencies, etc. For support, they should turn to everyone who can help.