Source The agency is demanding almost 267 million rubles from the department store for renting land on Red Square. The shopping center wants to set off this debt against the payment for the repair of the building. The Federal Property Management Agency filed a claim with the Moscow Arbitration Court against GUM Trading House JSC for 266.5 million rubles. As follows from the case file, this is the company's debt for rent in the period from September 1, 2020 to August 1, 2022. The first meeting is scheduled for January 19. The representative of GUM refused to explain how this debt was formed. The representative of the Federal Property Management Agency says that the defendant did not pay the rent for the land plot under the building on Red Square.
Now TD GUM pays 1.7 billion rubles for a historic building in the center of Moscow, including taxes, of which just 289 million for land, says Stepan Khantimirov, a lawyer at the Asterisk law firm, referring to a court decision dated 2020 in one of the disputes companies with the Federal Property Management Agency.
As follows from the court materials, the federal agency is obliged to carry out major repairs of the building at its own expense. If it does not do this, but there is an urgent need for urgent work, then the tenant can make major repairs himself and recover its cost from the landlord. He may also collect or offset it against the rent or demand a corresponding reduction in the payment. TD GUM, judging by the words of the representative of the Federal Property Management Agency, chose the second option, to which the territorial department of the department did not agree.
After that, a lawsuit was filed in court to recover the debt. According to a representative of the Federal Property Management Agency, the conditions for mutual settlements were not accepted “due to the peculiarities of budget planning and income forecasting.” What kind of repair work was carried out in GUM in 2020-2022, he did not explain. Judging by the court materials, earlier the trading house at its own expense installed an automatic fire extinguishing system in the building, repaired the translucent coating (glass ceilings above the passage), and so on. At least the file of arbitration cases contains more than a dozen lawsuits from GUM against the Federal Property Management Agency in connection with claims for compensation for repair work. To date, the company managing the department store has already collected 437.6 million rubles from the state, says a representative of the Federal Property Management Agency.
GUM is a unique facility located in the very center of the capital, while the building is very old and serious investments are required to maintain the facility, to update engineering systems, says Evgenia Khakberdieva, regional director of the NF Group retail real estate department. According to her, such investments often exceed the cost of new construction. As for the rates paid by the management company, they, in her opinion, are quite high. But if earlier they were justified by the tourist flow and high attendance of the complex, then with the onset of the pandemic, everything has changed, she says.
In general, this is a normal practice when the agency-lessor covers the expenses of tenants for the repair of buildings that are in long-term lease, Khantimirov points out. There is, according to him, an alternative option, when the tenant completely restores the building and for this concludes a contract for 49 years with a monthly payment of 1 ruble. At the same time, GUM is a special historical object with a long and complex contractual history, adds Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline-analytics.
Lawyers interviewed by Vedomosti believe that the company managing GUM is likely to be able to fight back from the suit of the Federal Property Management Agency. To set off homogeneous claims under the law, the consent of the federal authorities is not required, Khantimirov points out, and it doesn’t matter if we are talking about renting land or a building.
And if the tenant has agreed on the repair work with the Federal Property Management Agency and can present documents stating that these works have been completed, then he is entitled to reimbursement of his costs, including by offsetting other claims, agrees Dmitry Prosvirin, managing partner of the Central District law office .
The Federal Property Management Agency may win the dispute if the lease agreement prohibits set-off of claims, but this is unlikely, since the state does not traditionally use such a legal scheme, Khantimirov argues. From the analysis of judicial practice in disputes between tenants and the Federal Property Management Agency, it follows that under similar circumstances, most management companies manage to prove the right to reimbursement of costs for the overhaul, Prosvirin summarizes. West” by Mikhail Kusnirovich. The latter also owns the Bosco di Ciliegi brand. The revenue of the trading house GUM in 2021 amounted to 7.5 billion rubles, net profit – 1.8 billion rubles. for 49 years (until 2041) with the Moscow Property Management Agency for a nominal fee. The former manager of GUM previously told RBC that for a long time it was about $100 per 1 sq. m. m per year. Thus, the company's total annual expenses for this facility amounted to about $7.5 million. But in 2011, GUM was transferred by the Moscow Mayor's Office to federal ownership. As a result, the Federal Property Management Agency raised the rental rate in several stages, and after an audit by the Accounts Chamber in 2017, it secured the conclusion of an additional agreement for the lease of land under the historic building.
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