Vsetin deputy mayor's firm involved in Romanies' house deal-press

The lawyer’s firm of Lubomir Gajdusek (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL), deputy mayor of Vsetin, north Moravia, participated in the purchase of a house in Cechy pod Kosirem where the Vsetin Town Hall relocated a Romany family last year, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes in its local supplement today.

A total of 130,000 crowns were paid in commissions to real estate agencies during the transaction. However, Gajdusek claims that his company did not profit from it, the paper says.

It adds that mediators were searching for a new housing for Vsetin Romanies. The main mediator was Marian Budinsky, executive of the Imbex company, seated in Hodonin, south Moravia, at the same address as Gajdusek’s firm. Budinsky bought the real estate and immediately signed a contract of purchase with the Tulej Romany family.

While the original owner sold the house for 320,000 crowns, the Tulejs were to pay 450,000 crowns for it.

Gajdusek says that most of the money, some 80,000 crowns, went to a commission for the real estate agency in Prostejov, south Moravia, so the purchase price was higher than the original one.

Budisky and Prostejov real estate agency head Tomas Halir refused to comment on the case.

The Tulej family received a loan from the Vsetin Town Hall for the purchase of the house in Cechy pod Kosirem, which they are paying back regularly though the house does not belong to them to date.

The Tulejs’ lawyer Tamara Vranova pointed to discrepancies in contracts and to the fact that the Tulejs never granted full authority to someone for signing the final contract of purchase. This is why the Prostejov Land Registry interrupted the talks with them and the decision has not been made so far, Vranova added.

Ombudsman Otakar Motejl has expressed interest in the case. His office has worked out a report and sent it to the Vsetin mayor for comments.

The Vsetin Town Hall, when it was headed by current deputy PM Jiri Cunek (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL, chairman), relocated local Romany rent-defaulters from a dilapidated house in the Vsetin centre to a new house made of tin container-like flats on the town’s outskirts last year, while further Romany families were sent away from Vsetin and resettled elsewhere in Moravia – apart from Cechy pod Kosirem, to Stara Cervena Voda, Vidnava and Vlcice, north Moravia and to Drevnovice, south Moravia.

Gajdusek’s firm was not involved in the other cases.