After she was banned from buying a villa in Aurach near Gamsstadt in 2012 by the Administrative Court (VwGH), she is now the sole owner of the same 3,000 square meter property, reported the “Tiroler Tageszeitung”. The legal reason: her daughters had purchased it and given it to her.
The two bought the house from a Dutch stock company in 2015 for over 10 million euros, the report said on Thursday. Both daughters, who live in Vienna and London, respectively, had a Cypriot passport – so the purchase did not pose a problem in terms of property rights. A month and a half later, the gift was made to their mother, who was married to the Moscow mayor Yuri Luschkov, who died in 2019, and also has a residence in London. Baturina also had a passport from the EU country Cyprus. By the way, the billionaire had already registered a lien for 5.5 million euros on the house in 2022.
Active in Tyrol since the mid-2000s
Baturina’s activities in the Kitzbühel area go back almost two decades. For reasons of “public interest” she was able to purchase another luxury villa in Aurach in 2009. The then ÖVP-led state government is also said to have spoken out in favor of it – “due to Ms. Baturina’s strong intellectual and financial commitment in the areas of sport, tourism and culture.” Previously, in the mid-2000s, she bought the Eichenheim Golf Club in Kitzbühel and the golf hotel that was still under construction through a private foundation. In 2012, the Administrative Court rejected the purchase of another villa because the “public interest” no longer existed.
The donation, which has now become known, has drawn sharp criticism from the opposition Fritz list. It was a “flawless circumvention transaction,” stated club chairman Markus Sint. “On the one hand, this is cheeky and bold, but on the other hand, it also shows how easy it is to circumvent the current Tyrolean state laws,” he complained. The black-red state government looks on passively: “Although it has long known about the bypass system used, it is complicit and is actually fueling the sell-out of Tyrol.” Apart from “feigned excitement” according to media reports, nothing happened. “We as Liste Fritz demand that the black-red state government investigate all real estate deals in connection with Cypriot companies or Cypriot citizens,” warned Sint again.
