RT: Yukos founder Khodorkovsky pledged his estate to a Swiss bank for £ 6 million his estate Best Beech Place on the outskirts of London for six million pounds (more than half a billion rubles). This is reported by RT.
According to the newspaper, Khodorkovsky bought a three-story red brick mansion in April 2015 for 4.67 million pounds and rebuilt it. The house, erected in 1929, is located in the High Wilde area, near London. It has seven bedrooms, six living rooms, five bathrooms and two swimming pools. The residential section is connected by a glazed greenhouse with a garage and technical annexes. In addition, the detached wing has three offices, a tennis court behind the garage, and a fountain in front of the house. The estate has gardens and meadows.
According to RT, the annual cost of housing and communal services (HCS) in the house can reach 25 thousand pounds. About 6.7 thousand pounds are spent on insurance, and 25.2 thousand pounds for taxes.
On March 5, 2021, the owner mortgaged the estate to the bank as security for certain obligations, the publication found out from the UK cadastral extract. “The encumbrance is established in favor of UBS AG (place of registration: Switzerland),” the document says.
The founder of the portal “Sentence”, researcher of the biography of Khodorkovsky, Sergei Sokolov, explained that in this way the businessman wants to disguise his property. “Knowing that all this could potentially be withdrawn from him as compensation in a criminal case, he thus complicates the search and seizure of real estate,” the expert added.
Another interlocutor of RT, economic lawyer Anatoly Verbitsky, clarified that while the owners of the house have obligations to the bank, other parties cannot buy and transfer this property. “Thus, the owner can protect himself from attempts by other creditors to take away his property, especially if the pledge is made through a friendly bank,” he said.
One of such creditors of Khodorkovsky, the newspaper points out, Russia, to which the businessman owes 18.7 billion rubles for enforcement proceedings. In 2003, he was charged with fraud, embezzlement or embezzlement, property damage, tax evasion, and forgery. Prior to that, on July 2, 2003, Platon Lebedev, former chairman of the board of directors of MFO Menatep CJSC, was detained on suspicion of stealing 20 percent of the state-owned shares of the Murmansk Apatit OJSC in the amount of $ 283.1 million.
According to investigators, Khodorkovsky was in charge of the embezzlement. On May 31, 2005, both accused received nine years in prison, later their sentences were reduced to eight years. In December 2013, Khodorkovsky was pardoned by President Vladimir Putin and left Russia.