A person’s shelter and home are essential to his peace and tranquility. Due to large-scale residential construction, which has accelerated in recent years in Uzbekistan, hundreds of thousands of families have been provided housing.

However, in this process, there is low-quality construction of buildings or construction delays, and in some cases, non-fulfillment of obligations by construction companies.

For example, last year, news about citizens who signed a contract to buy an apartment in the multi-story buildings planned to be built in Yashnabad district of Tashkent city and complained that the construction work has not started even after more than a year and a half were widely spread on social networks. Later, a government commission was formed on this issue. A total of 2,668 citizens have had problems with the houses being built and planned to be built on Izzat Street due to the fraud of the construction company officials. Contracts were concluded with citizens for 1409 out of 1513 houses, and cadastral documents were issued to only 260 citizens. The remaining 1162 apartments were problematic.

Many more such examples can be given. Therefore, an initiative was put forward to switch to the escrow system, in which the housing payment is made after the housing is completed, based on the contribution of a share in the election program of the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan.

Under the proposed system, the homebuyer would keep his money in a special bank account (escrow account). An escrow account is a bank account where the funds of citizens who make a share are kept. The buyer does not transfer the money for housing directly to the seller, but to an account, the housing company cannot control. This account number will not be available to the housing company, which means that the company will not be able to spend the money until the housing is finished.

The essence of escrow is that the construction company cannot receive the money until the house is handed over to the buyer. Thus, the risk of losing money due to the construction company’s bankruptcy or fraud is reduced, and the problem of deceived shareholders is solved. At the same time, the construction company receives money for the construction from the bank, not from the shareholders.

Suppose the PDPU’s proposal to transfer the payment for housing during construction to the payment system after the housing is finished (escrow) is implemented. In that case, our citizens will not be victims of various frauds and tricks when buying housing.

In addition, the responsibility of construction companies to fulfill their obligations on time and with quality will increase.