Issue: № 12, 2025
Doi: https://doi.org/10.37634/efp.2025.12.5
The paper examines the features of the payment for the rent of school canteens by tenants – organizers of meals for students of secondary schools. It is noted that the international experience of organizing meals for students shows that in most developed countries of the world, providing high-quality meals for schoolchildren and preschoolers is equated with the issue of national security of the state. It is established that during the USSR there was a national act, according to which educational institutions are obliged to provide free of charge to organizers of meals for students premises that meet the necessary sanitary and technical requirements, hot and cold water. Later, a similar order of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine dated 01.08.2006 No. 265 was adopted. However, the studied judicial practice testified and testifies that the courts applied this Order extremely inconsistently – both in favor of the organizer of meals and in favor of the supervisory authorities - in the latter case, referring to the fact that the Order was not registered with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. This disagreement created a situation of legal uncertainty for school catering organizers, thereby violating their rights, and also vividly illustrates how state policy in this area is fragmented into local policies. It is also noted that during 2019-2021, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine considered the draft Law on Nutrition in General Secondary Education Institutions, which provided for «granting the right to use free of charge for the organization of nutrition of children in general secondary education institutions the premises of school canteens and buffets, provided with hot and cold water, heat, electricity, and sewage». However, this draft law never became law. Under such conditions, it should be borne in mind that the financial burden on the organizers of catering for secondary school students can be reduced by applying Part 6 of Article 762 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, according to which the tenant is exempted from rent for the entire time during which the property could not be used by him due to circumstances for which the tenant is not responsible, that is, in particular, during the period of absence of schoolchildren in offline schools (vacations, quarantines, danger of enemy shelling).
Keywords : rent, utilities, rent payment, secondary school students, vacations, quarantine, exemption from rent
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