Unjustified Enrichment in Lease Legal Relations in the Field of Heat Supply
Authors: Makarova L.A. , Nevzgodina E.L. 
Published: November 2024

Introduction. Lease legal relations, widespread in the field of heat supply, have a pronounced sectoral coloring, arising both from the characteristics of the property being leased, which is necessary to provide warm energy, and from the subject composition of the existing legal relations. The costs of the heat supplying organization related to the lease of heat supply facilities used in the core business are included in the heat energy tariff, and accordingly, they are ultimately reimbursed from the “consumers pocket”. In practice, there is an increasing application to norms of unjust enrichment that are developing in the sphere of heat supply, which, at the same time, must be fair, i.e. proportionate to the consequences of violations. Purpose. The purpose of this article is to study and conduct an analysis of law enforcement practice regarding obligations arising from rental legal relations in the field of heat supply due to unjust enrichment. These conclusions, in turn, will make it possible to study in more detail from the perspective of industry legislation the institution of condicion obligations, to make suggestions for improving general legal and industry standards. Methodology. Achieving this goal was ensured through the use of general scientific and particular scientific research methods: dialectical, formal logical, system-structural, comparative legal, technical and legal, scientific analysis method. Results. An analysis of the provisions of the current legislation, the mechanisms for the interaction of general civil and industry norms in lease relations allows us to conclude that the application of the provisions on unjust enrichment to relations developing in the field of heat supply, in order to rationally use energy resources, should be clearly argued. An important role in this process is played by judicial practice, clarifications from higher courts on controversial issues, which make it possible to concretize and in some particularly unfair cases the correct use of protective mechanisms in the socially significant sphere of heat supply. The authors have summarized the current latest judicial practice regarding the application of the rules on unjust enrichment to rental legal relations in this area. Conclusion. Obligations due to unjust enrichment, despite the ongoing discussions in the scientific literature regarding their place in the system of civil remedies, often fulfill a significant restorative function on the side of both the lessee and the lessor in the field of heat supply. At the same time, due to the specific rules on the lease agreement contained in the Heat Supply Law, courts often allow incorrect qualification of disputed legal relations (in particular, if the lease is invalidated, the rules on the distribution of the burden of repairs between the tenant and the lessor should be applied cannot, the rules on unjust enrichment are directly applied). The conclusions made in the article, specifying cases and conditions for the application of the rules on unjust enrichment in rental legal relations in the field of heat supply, allow us to generalize the model of legal regulation of these legal relations, including from the point of view of justice and the social benefit of heat supply.