Baratova Marina - Senior Lecturer, Department of Civil Law, National Research University Higher School of Economics, LLM (Private Law).  E-mail: bma@hse.ru
Address: National Research University — Higher School of Economics, 20, Myasnitskaya str., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation.

This article features an extended analysis of legal categories family member and residence as a family member. The analysis has been performed on the basis of legal regulation and materials of case practice. Currently, the Russian legislator applies the concept of family member in various legislations including civil, inheritance, family, tax, social security etc. An extensive case practice on housing disputes confirms the relevance of the issue. Our analysis of the legislation and case practice in our country as to family member shows that one should declare the absence of a single concept family member which could be used in various branches of law. Moreover, RF housing law lacks the definition of the concept. A person who may represent the concept differs depending on the area. Hence, one should state the presence of legal ambiguity applying this concept. The article also studies the problem of the concept indisputable and disputable family members. The list of indisputable family members in housing law is complete and this category of persons entitles them to the use of facilities by default. The list of persons belonging to disputable family members is not specified in the RF legislation and is subject to interpretation. Persons from this category do not acquire the right to use facilities by default. The analysis allows making a conclusion that the legislators formulated this legal definition to recognize people relating to the category of disputable family members: a person is entitled to (under RF housing legislation) to claim a legal status of a family member only after the person has been dwelled into the facilities as a family member.