The rules for living in a communal apartment are not clearly stated in the Housing Code and other legislative acts, which is why most residents simply do not know how to live in a communal apartment without unnecessary problems.

The absence of prescribed rules and norms leads to the fact that people living in an apartment, by their certain actions, can violate the rights of other people, which, in turn, will lead to an inevitable conflict.

To understand how to behave in a communal apartment, first let’s define what this living space is.

Which apartment is considered communal?

So, a communal apartment is a residential property that consists of several separate residential premises. Each room in a communal apartment has a separate owner or tenant. At the same time, all residents in the communal apartment use common services: kitchen, bathroom, corridor.

The use of common areas often gives rise to a lot of conflict situations between residents. Along with this, disputes can arise for a number of other reasons: loud noise, noise at night, music, keeping pets, smoking indoors, etc.

In fact, there can be a huge number of reasons for conflict. Sometimes a small reason is enough for the situation to develop into unbearable living in a communal apartment.

Basic rules for living in a communal apartment

Right to dispose of premises

All residents of a communal apartment are divided into owners, who own part of the residential premises by right of ownership, and tenants, who live in the apartment on the basis of a social tenancy agreement.

Owners have the following rights:

• transfer the owned part of the premises for rent to other persons;
• register (register) any person both permanently and temporarily;
• alienate your share by sale, gift or exchange.

Employers can:

• transfer part of the premises under a sublease agreement (with the consent of the landlord and neighbors living in the apartment).

Tenants cannot dispose of real estate (for example, sell, donate), since part of the apartment does not belong to them.

Maintenance of common areas

Living in a communal apartment means that, like in any other residential premises, it is necessary to maintain order and cleanliness, comply with sanitary standards, and fire safety rules.

Every owner or tenant must adhere to these small but significant rules: clean common areas, take out trash, and monitor safety precautions in the premises. Every resident of a communal apartment must understand that he does not live alone in this room and one of the residents may suffer from his negligent or intentional actions.

Intended use of residential premises

Another common problem that causes a lot of disputes is the use of an apartment for other purposes. Since a communal apartment is a residential property, it should be used exclusively for living in it.

However, some people neglect this rule and, despite everything, use their room as a non-residential space (for example, as an office). Of course, this cannot but bring a lot of inconvenience to other residents. This can also be regarded as a violation of the Predatory Code and legal norms.

Carrying out repairs

The need for repairs in a communal apartment can be established both by a general agreement of the residents, and by conducting an inspection of the premises by the organization servicing the house.

If the inspection of the premises is carried out by a housing management organization, an inspection report must be drawn up. If repairs are necessary, a cost estimate is drawn up. Payment for repair costs is carried out at the expense of the owners in proportion to their shares.

Pets in the apartment

Many people are lovers of pets: dogs, cats, guinea pigs, birds. And if their maintenance in a separate apartment or private house usually does not cause any problems, then in a communal apartment this can not only confuse the neighbors, but also cause damage to both their health and their property.

The Housing Code does not prohibit keeping pets in a communal apartment, and other regulatory documents also do not contain any prohibition regarding animals. However, in order to avoid scandals with neighbors in the living space, it is better to coordinate this issue with them and obtain their consent.

Smoking in the apartment

Unfortunately, not a single regulatory act has regulated the issue of smoking in residential premises. Based on this, there is no direct ban on smoking in communal housing.

In turn, smoking can cause damage and harm to the health of other residents of the apartment. As a last resort, solve the problem in court, motivating your demands by the fact that smokers use public places for personal needs.

Since the Housing Code does not have specifics regarding the rules of residence and rules of conduct in a communal apartment, they are formed based on the norms of other legal documents.

Another option is to establish rules of residence and rules of conduct by agreement with neighbors, which will make further cohabitation much easier.

The rules for living in a communal apartment are the same for all owners and tenants of living space. None of them have any advantages or privileges.

Responsibilities of a resident of a communal apartment

Each resident has certain responsibilities regarding living in a communal apartment. As for the responsibilities of residents directly provided for by the Housing Code, the first thing that should be highlighted is the obligation to pay for the use of housing and communal services (electricity, water supply, heating, waste removal, rent).

As a rule, in a communal apartment, meters are installed for the use of water and electricity, while other services must be paid according to the number of registered persons in the apartment.

It is impossible to accurately determine the amount of water, electricity or heat consumed by each consumer, so each owner contributes an amount by agreement, usually within the limits of his share of the apartment.

Thus, residents must pay regularly for the services they consume. If payment is not made, utilities may stop supplying the service. That is why it is important that each resident conscientiously fulfills his or her duties, otherwise the interests of other residents may be violated.

In practice, it is very rare that neighbors in a communal apartment develop good relationships. More often, constant litigation leads to the fact that it is impossible to resolve the dispute peacefully. In this case, the problem will have to be resolved in court.

It is the court that is called upon to resolve housing disputes, which include: determining the procedure for using public places, evictions from housing, and collecting debts for non-payment of utilities. If the problem is a violation of peace or public order, then it is worth involving law enforcement agencies.

In one case or another, every person has the right to protect their legal rights and interests, and therefore has the right to contact the police, and in case of a dispute, to the judiciary.

In order to avoid unpleasant situations with neighbors and lengthy legal proceedings, you should simply adhere to the rules of residence and rules of conduct in a communal apartment, and not violate the Housing Code and the housing and other rights of other people.

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Communal apartments are a phenomenon in our country that has not been eliminated to this day. Moreover, communal housing in its worst version - the barracks - remains today in some former industrial cities and urban-type settlements.

Communal apartment as a phenomenon

Let's take the communal apartment in its early Soviet understanding as the subject of research, when:
“Everyone lived on equal footing, modestly like this:
corridor system,
for thirty-eight rooms
only one restroom”...
And in the classic version, when already in the so-called Stalinist communal apartment, usually from 3 to 7 families lived.
Of course, practically one housing for 38 families (or a little less, since one owner could own two rooms) is cool. Such “multi-occupancy” communal apartments were located in apartment buildings and mansions of pre-revolutionary construction, slightly adjusted by reconstruction and the construction of additional partitions in the halls and living rooms to increase the number of rooms. At least, the communal apartment mentioned by Vysotsky, who lived as a child in Moscow on 1st Meshchanskaya Street, was probably located in one of these apartment buildings, with which almost the entire street was built up...

First retreat

I remember this communal apartment very well. She was on the first floor of our Z-shaped house on Vosstaniya Street in the then Leninsky district. The house was, it seems, on the balance sheet of the Helicopter Plant, and mostly workers and employees of this largest enterprise in the city lived in the house.
Four families lived in this communal apartment. Our family lived nearby: in a one-room Stalinist house. Our apartment was large, with a huge hallway in which my father’s Izh motorcycle stood. There were four of us living in the apartment: my parents, my father’s mother and me. And in the communal apartment, where I went as if it were my home, since the door was locked only at night, there was a long corridor that ended with two doors: the toilet and the bathroom.
On the left side of the corridor there were three doors. Behind one lived my same year and classmate Vovka Gerasimov, behind the other lived Vovka Chernikov. Also my friend, a year older than me. The third door at the very end of the corridor led to a huge common kitchen.
There were two doors on the right side of the corridor. Behind one lived a lonely lady, not yet old, incredibly beautiful and dressed in silks. She was, it seems, one of the “former” ones. Or, rather, from the children of those who did not have time to go to Paris after the revolution.
The second door, at the end of the corridor, led to the apartment of Vovka Polyakov, also a year or two older than me. It seemed like he had a sister, but girls didn’t interest me at that time.
Thus, three Vovkas lived in the communal apartment at once. Me and them – that’s your backyard hockey team...

It all started with the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of August 1918, abolishing private ownership of real estate in cities. In empty and cleared of “White Guard elements” apartments, as well as in those inhabited by “bourgeois”, they began to move peasants and proletarians, several families at a time, according to hastily issued orders. The densification process has gone so far that the vast majority of multi-room apartments in tenement houses and mansions have become communal. One or two rooms were occupied with his family by a former official of some department, not known for counter-revolutionary acts, and the remaining five rooms were occupied by five families from villages, suburbs or urban workers' barracks. The kitchen and bathroom were, of course, shared.
Many of the lodgers saw a clean toilet and bathroom for the first time, and since it was not theirs, but someone else’s, the attitude was appropriate. In addition, rent was not charged in those days. Why take good care of something that costs nothing? And soon the apartments turned into filthy square meters, and the kitchen into a dirty and smelly breeding ground for cockroaches. What it was like for the previous owners to live with such settlers - it’s better to remain silent about that. Only famous doctors practicing at home, like Professor Preobrazhensky from “Heart of a Dog,” world-famous scientists, high-ranking officials and specialists who took the side of the Soviet regime and became “responsible workers” retained separate apartments. And so that “compactors” from the house committee did not come to them, for example, in the person of the chairman of the house committee, Comrade Shvonder, Comrade Vyazemskaya, disguised as a man, comrades Petrukhin and Zharovkin, they needed “the final piece of paper, actual, real... armor!”...


In a word, the process of transforming multi-room apartments into communal apartments, especially in large cities, whose population was growing due to refugees, front-line soldiers, and migrants from villages, has begun. And as a result:
- dirt in the common corridor;
- smelly toilets;
- clogged sewer;
- scratched bathrooms (if any);
- chipped ceramic tiles and chipped parquet;
- broken windows boarded up with plywood;
- broken granite (!) entrance stairs, etc.
“God, the house is gone. What will happen to steam heating!” Professor Preobrazhensky prophetically lamented...
Houses built in the 80-90s of the 19th century, the walls of which were not covered by destructive cast-iron “babas”, fell into such disrepair and disrepair that they began to be demolished in the 30s. And they literally demolished it before Khrushchev’s time. In 1955, the house with communal apartments on 1st Meshchanskaya, where Volodya Vysotsky’s parents and himself lived, was also demolished. Since the house was beyond repair...

The 30s and 40s did not bring any special changes to communal life. Except that the residents of communal apartments began to find a common language, somehow got used to each other and got used to the kitchen aromas of sour cabbage soup, rancid porridge and fish fried in machine oil. And we got used to pillowcases, panties, underpants, bras and leggings, hung in the same kitchen after washing. It was in communal apartments that a new type of person was forged, for whom any difficulties and inconveniences were nothing. He was simple-minded and often naive (both good things), and his whole life was on display, including his family relationships, his underwear, and the foods he ate.
The “Vorony settlements,” in one of which the writer Yevgeny Petrov lived and which he and Ilya Ilf described in the novel “The Golden Calf,” became fewer and fewer. But more and more communal apartments appeared, where people lived as a single family, intertwined with aspirations, interests and even destinies. They quarreled, of course, then they made up, they quarreled again... Then, sitting at the same table in the kitchen, in the corridor or in the largest room - and the table was arranged by sharing or together, whoever had what - they celebrated holidays, weddings, birthdays. They drank. Sang. They played the harmonica. They laughed and cried. In plain sight. And there was an amazing simplicity in this, probably strange if you look at it with today’s eyes, but so Russian and understandable. When you don't need more than what you have. And not because you don’t want to have something else. But because everything you need for life is there...

This is how it happened that the communal apartment, as a phenomenon of the post-revolutionary way of life, which was intended to be temporary, over the course of this very time turned into a common and understandable world order for many Soviet people. Which, in turn, determined the life of Soviet citizens for entire decades, becoming an integral part of the urban subculture.

Stalin's communal apartments

It was a classic of communal living, which older Soviet people still remember. As already mentioned, Stalin’s communal apartments most often housed 3-7 families, depending on the availability of rooms.
There were several communal multi-room apartments in Stalinist buildings. They could be immediately recognized by the presence of several bell buttons at the front door, sometimes with surnames inscribed, sometimes with instructions on who to ring and how many times.


There were also several electricity meters depending on the number of apartments. There were several washbasins, but not according to the number of living families, but according to the number of water supplies. Family kerosene stoves were replaced by gas stoves, which again were not enough for all the families living in the apartment, and cooking on them took place one at a time. What was enough was kitchen tables: one for each family. Residents of communal apartments usually had lunch and dinner in their rooms. The table in the kitchen most often served as a cutting table for cooking, but could also serve as a dining table. Behind him, the adults had a quick breakfast in the morning and the children had a snack between games. Sometimes the men chose some table, no matter whose, to crush a bottle or two. The hostess of the table came, kindly shooed them away, and they moved to another seat. And we went to the toilet with our own seats, which were only wooden then.

There was a duty schedule that hung on the wall in a visible place, according to which each responsible tenant, that is, the renter of a room in the apartment, knew exactly when to clean the common areas: the kitchen, the corridor, the toilet. In apartments that had bathrooms, there was also a schedule for visiting them, for example:
- Kochetkovs - on Monday afternoon;
- Zakharovs - on Monday evening;
- Sveta - on Tuesday morning;
- Aaron Moiseevich - on Wednesday evening;
- Polina Markovna and Avdotya Markovna – on Thursday;
- Osipchuk – on Friday afternoon;
- Gennady Nikolaevich - on Friday evening and so on...


The kitchen in communal apartments was large even by today's standards. Here clothes were washed and hung out to dry, dishes were washed, preparations for the winter were made, in which neighbors willingly took part, and confidential women's conversations were held.
The kitchen, like the hallway, served as a playground for children. In it, despite the presence of tables, washbasins, gas stoves and other equipment, one could easily ride a three-wheeled bike, making circles and returning to the long corridor, which served as both a bicycle track and a treadmill. If it weren’t for the things that did not fit in the rooms and hung on the walls of the corridor or stood leaning against them - cabinets, chests, sleds, troughs, skis, strollers and bathtubs, boxes and cans - then it would have been possible to organize football battles in it.
In the evenings, the kitchen turned into a club where all the residents of the apartment gathered to spend their leisure time. Even ancient old men and women came, leaving their rooms only when needed. They stared at the children, trying to recognize whose they were, listened to conversations, trying to understand their essence, or sat quietly in the corner and read yesterday's newspapers left on the tables.
Speaking of children...

Children of communal apartments

The children of communal apartments were, one might say, common. They were looked after together. They were raised together, often fed together and simply cared for as human beings. Any elder in a communal apartment was an unquestioning authority for these children. Children were also punished both individually and collectively if they committed a collective offense. Often their own children, as well as the Kochetkovs and Zakharovs, received belts from Gennady Nikolaevich for hooliganism, and this did not make the Kochetkovs and Zakharovs mortal enemies of Gennady Nikolaevich. If, of course, the children received a fair scolding. That is, let's get down to business.
Children of communal apartments easily entered rooms other than their own, which were rarely locked (except in case of planned sex), treated themselves at other people's dining tables, and - amazingly - rarely disturbed anyone. And if they were somehow expelled from the kitchens, then the corridor was entirely at their disposal. It is difficult to imagine that in this state of affairs these children could grow up to be rednecks or beeches, shunning people and loving only themselves. The children of communal apartments grew up lively, cheerful, unpretentious, savvy and always ready to come to the rescue of a friend. It was a pleasure to be friends with them...

Second retreat

I came to these three Vovkas as if to my own home. I was mine. And he immediately joined their corridor games. We made noise mercilessly. And when they hit a child’s bathtub with a ball and it still fell from the wall onto the floor, there was such a roar as if someone was hitting a sheet of galvanized iron with a crowbar overhead. I don’t know about the others, but we were delighted by such sounds and laughed until we dropped.
Of course, corridor battles only happened in bad weather. And so we spent whole days in the yard, occasionally running home to grab a piece of bread, spread with jam or sprinkled with granulated sugar, and immediately rush back. We always had no time. And I don’t remember that these three Vovoks ever quarreled among themselves, not sharing something...

The residents of the communal apartments lived in harmony. There wasn't much to share. And everyone understood that if there was no peace in such a large group, almost a family, then the not-so-sweet life could turn into such a nightmare that God forbid. Therefore, anyone without an invitation could enter any room where he did not become “worse than a Tatar.”
By the way, Russians, Belarusians, Tatars, Chuvash, Mari, Mordovians and other nationalities of the USSR got along well in communal apartments. And there were absolutely no conflicts on ethnic grounds. It’s just that the Belarusian Vasil turned into Vasya, the Tatar Ildus into Ilya, and the Chuvash Yakhvar into Yasha. And everyone was equal.

And how they walked in communal apartments at a common table on big holidays! The song is simple! All the children also sat at a common table, only at their own, a children’s table, which was built in the same kitchen separately from the adult’s table. After eating, they ran into the yard to play, leaving the adults with their salads, dumplings, vodka and songs about the daring Khasbulat, the lonely accordion and the darling in a protective tunic. Of course, it was interesting to listen to the conversations of adults. But it was even more interesting to complete the headquarters in the yard, play football with the boys from the neighboring house and feed Zhulka’s fold-eared puppies.
Common problems, common interests, common entertainment, common destiny... It probably wasn’t very good after all. Judging from the point of view of an individual. But why then, having moved into a two-room apartment that my father received from the Helicopter Plant, for another three years, every weekend and on holidays, I came to that Z-shaped house of ours on Vosstaniya Street, came to the three Vovkas, and it seemed to me that nothing as if nothing has changed?
However, today I know the answer to this question very well...

Utility deal: what you need to know before buying a room in an apartment

Buying a room in a communal apartment is cheap and easy, but the subsequent sale process may take a long time

There are relatively few communal apartments left in Moscow - about 4% of the Moscow housing stock. However, they are in demand as one of the most budget-friendly options for buying a first home in the capital or for traveling with relatives.

A room is a specific object, with complex sales technology. Buying it is not difficult, but the process of subsequent sale can be long and difficult. RBC Real Estate asked market experts about offers and prices for Moscow rooms, as well as what difficulties may arise in transactions with such objects.

Offer of rooms in Moscow

Most of the communal apartments are no longer concentrated in the historical center, where the process of resettling communal apartments began in the 1990s and is close to completion, but in the former working-class areas of the south and east of Moscow. According to CIAN, the most rooms for sale are now in the municipal districts of Biryulyovo Vostochnoye, Tekstilshchiki, Lefortovo, Yuzhnoportovy, Orekhovo-Borisovo Yuzhnoye. These communal apartments appeared in Soviet times as housing for employees of large industrial and transport enterprises.

Advertisements for the sale of rooms account for 2.5% of the total supply on the Moscow secondary market. The share of such properties has begun to decline, as communal apartments are gradually becoming a thing of the past, and cases when the owners of a full-fledged apartment decide to sell it in parts have become rare.

“On the contrary, a trend is gaining momentum when the owners of rooms sell the entire communal apartment with the subsequent division of the money,” said Evgeniy Zatonsky, director of the federal real estate company Etazhi. “In the next two to three years, this may lead to a decrease in the number of proposals. But rooms as a type are unlikely to disappear completely - after all, not everyone has the opportunity to buy an apartment. And a room is the most affordable way to get your own housing.”

Who buys housing in communal apartments

There is a demand for rooms, realtors say. Most often, they are bought either by visitors who need to gain a foothold in Moscow, but do not have the funds for an apartment, or by Moscow families who are moving away.

“The main target audience of buyers are those who do not have enough for a one-room apartment, but need to solve the housing problem immediately and in this area of ​​the capital,” said Alexey Popov, head of the CIAN analytical center. — For them, arguments related to the opportunity to buy a studio in a new building in another area, as a rule, are not relevant. And the price level for rooms is still 20-25% lower than for the most affordable studios in apartment complexes.”

The scenario when an apartment is not purchased immediately, but in separate rooms, is now not very common, the expert notes. The most interesting multi-room communal apartments in the center have long been bought up and turned into expensive apartments for wealthy Muscovites (what they, in fact, were during the construction of apartment buildings at the beginning of the twentieth century).

At what price can I buy a room?

The average price of a room in Moscow is 3.05 million rubles. The range of prices in this market is less than among full-fledged apartments. The most expensive rooms are offered in apartment buildings within the Garden Ring (up to 15 million rubles in Arbat lanes), and the cheapest lots are in New Moscow at a price of 0.9 million rubles.

Cost of rooms in Moscow

Number of rooms	Apartment	Cost/million rub.
1	Two-room	3,02
1	Three-room apartment	2,69
1	Four-room apartment	2,84
2	Three-room apartment	4,81
2	Four-room apartment	5,43

Table: CIAN

“The dynamics of prices on the room market corresponds to changes in the secondary market as a whole,” said Alexey Popov. “Since 2014, they have fallen in price by an average of 10-12%. The decline in supply prices has stopped in the last few quarters.”

The price of a room depends on several factors: the area and condition of the room, the area, the number of rooms in the apartment, the condition of the common areas, whether the house is undergoing renovation or not.

“The price of rooms also depends on the general pricing policy of the real estate market and the situation as a whole,” said Alexander Lunin, leading manager of the secondary housing department of the ABC Housing real estate agency. “Although, if we compare the overall real estate market in Moscow, the rate of price decline for rooms over the year will be slightly less in 2018 than for the market as a whole, and will be approximately 3-5%.”

What are you buying

In one communal apartment, some of the rooms may be owned by the residents, while the other part may belong to the state. In the “state” part, people can live on the basis of a social tenancy agreement. The remaining premises - kitchen, bathroom, corridor, storage rooms, balconies and loggias - belong to the owners on the basis of common shared ownership.

“Some have the false belief that this property belongs “equally to everyone,” said Evgeny Zatonsky. - In fact, this is not so: the owners have their own share in the common property, and its size depends on the size of the room. The larger your room, the more common property you own. This means that you have to invest more in maintaining this property, including financially.”

Rules for selling rooms

The owners of other rooms in a communal apartment have a pre-emptive right to purchase the alienated share in the manner and under the conditions provided for by the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

“To respect the rights of these owners, the seller of the room must send them a special notice,” said Marina Tolstik, managing partner of Miel-Network of Real Estate Offices. — Such a notice is a document, it indicates the price and conditions under which the room is sold. And the owners of other rooms in a communal apartment can purchase the room for sale under these conditions.”

If some rooms in a communal apartment are in municipal ownership (not privatized), then a notice of sale must be sent to the appropriate executive body exercising the powers of the owner of the housing stock (in Moscow this is the city property department).

If within a month none of the owners of other rooms buys the room being sold at the price set by the seller, then it can be sold to any other person. Neighbors can have their refusal certified by a notary or when registering the transaction and property rights at the registration chamber. If the owner of the room is a minor, then his refusal can only be obtained with the permission of the guardianship and trusteeship authorities.

“If other owners refuse to purchase the room, it can only be sold to third parties at a price not lower than the price at which he offered to buy it to the neighbors. Otherwise, the purchase and sale agreement may be terminated at the request of the owners of other rooms,” noted Evgeniy Zatonsky.

The rule of first refusal does not work if the room is sold to one of the neighboring owners in a communal apartment, that is, in this case there is no need to offer the purchase of the room to the remaining neighbors.

Difficulties with selling

In real life, difficulties with selling a room may arise already at the stage of notifying the owners of a communal apartment. The first problem is finding the neighbors themselves, which sometimes takes a lot of time. There are often cases when other owners do not live in a communal apartment and the seller of the room does not know their whereabouts.

“In this case, a written notification must be sent either to the last known address of the neighbor-owner, or to the location of his room, that is, to the address of the same communal apartment,” said Svetlana Krasnova, head of the legal service of Inkom-Real Estate. “It is necessary to take such a step, since if the pre-emptive right to purchase is violated, the owners of other rooms have the right, within three months, to demand through the court that the rights and obligations of the buyer be transferred to themselves.”

There are situations when the seller does not know the owner of another room - for example, if, after the death of the previous neighbor-owner, his heirs did not register their inheritance rights in the Unified State Register of Real Estate.

Photo: Marina Kruglyakova/TASS

“In this case, it is difficult for the seller to understand who needs to be notified about the sale of the room. It’s good if you can find the notary who opened the inheritance case and, with his help, find the heirs,” noted Svetlana Krasnova.

There are also frequent situations when the owners of the remaining rooms deliberately interfere with neighbors who are engaged in the sale. Inkom-Real Estate lawyers said that some neighbors sabotage the sales process, disrupt a potential buyer’s viewing of the room, delay preparations for the transaction, or even try to prevent it. For example, they may ignore notifications sent to them or avoid receiving them. They may formally agree to buy out the room, and then start a correspondence with the seller to agree on the terms of the deal, so that ultimately, under various pretexts, the deal is never reached. Some unscrupulous neighbors sometimes ask other people (for example, relatives) to receive notifications for them, in order to then prove the lack of proper notification about the sale of the room.

The reasons for such actions can be very different. For example, other room owners may consider the price too high and expect to buy the room cheaper. Or the neighbors are satisfied that the remaining rooms are empty (if the owners live in other places) and the common areas are practically completely at their disposal. The sale of neighbors' rooms threatens them with new tenants, with whom they will still have to share living space.

Experts advise in such cases to be patient and seek from neighbors the necessary waivers or consent to the purchase, and, if possible, have all documents notarized. Or you can turn to experienced realtors or lawyers who will take on these troubles.