Strong blow for Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and his wife, Carmen. The Iohannis family definitively lost a house and another property in Sibiu, which can now be registered in the Romanian state’s assets, and the money collected from their rental – amounting to hundreds of thousands of euros – must be returned.
Today’s final decision belongs to the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ÎCCJ), which ruled in an older case regarding the inheritance of a property in Sibiu, located at 35 Gheorghe Magheru Street, which belonged to Carmen Iohannis and the Baștea family – close friends of the presidential family, writes G4Media.
Due to this inheritance-related litigation, the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) argued that it could not recover another property that belonged to the president, a commercial space in Sibiu, located at 29 Nicolae Bălcescu Street, which was rented to Raiffeisen Bank (as reported by Rise Project), bringing the Iohannis family 260,000 euros in rent between 1999 and 2016.
However, with today's published decision, the last legal obstacle for the Tax Authority (Fiscul) to recover the money from Iohannis is removed.
The Romanian state can now proceed with recovering the money that Klaus Iohannis would have received as rent from both properties, totaling around 320,000 euros, according to Antena3.
If the president does not pay this money, enforcement measures may be taken.
The History of Troubled Houses
Between 1999 and 2008, the Magheru house belonged to Ioan Baștea, who has since passed away, Georgeta Lăzurcă, the president's mother-in-law, and Carmen Iohannis, his wife.
The Romanian state was declared the legal heir of the property in 2008.
Rodica Baștea (Ioan Baștea's wife and a friend of the Iohannis family) sought the annulment of this heir certificate. She lost the lawsuit opened in 2016 both at the Hunedoara Tribunal and at the Alba Court of Appeal, and now at the ÎCCJ.
According to ANAF, this litigation hindered the state from recovering the other property lost in court by the Iohannis family in November 2015. This refers to the commercial space in Sibiu, located at 29 Nicolae Bălcescu Street. Due to the lawsuit, the succession was suspended by the notary public.
In the case of this property, the Brasov Court of Appeal ruled that it was illegally held by the Iohannis couple, and in April 2016, the family's property title was removed from the land registry.
Since then, the Romanian state has been unable to register its property rights over the property due to inheritance disputes. And nor has it been able to recover the money illegally collected in rent by the Iohannis family.