Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan's Family Purchases New Villa in Czechia: 'Hetq'

Hayk Marutyan, who has held the position of Yerevan Mayor since October 2018, and his wife Iva Marutyan acquired three real estate properties last year in the Czech town of Kutná Hora. This was reported by 'Hetq'.

This is not the Marutyan family's first real estate purchase in the Czech Republic. It is noteworthy that Iva is of Czech nationality and a citizen of the Czech Republic, as are the four minor children of the Yerevan Mayor.

Last year, Hayk Marutyan informed journalists that he is a citizen of Armenia and does not hold Czech citizenship but did not disclose further information regarding his residency rights in that EU member country.

When Marutyan submitted his asset declaration to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) prior to the Yerevan municipal elections in September 2018, he stated that he owned two pieces of real estate in Yerevan’s Northern Avenue (a residential apartment and a garage) solely in his name. Additionally, he declared seven properties in the Czech capital Prague (five apartments, two plots of land, and one villa).

It should be noted that part of the Czech properties are solely owned by Marutyan, while others are co-owned with his wife, a detail verified from the country's cadastre. Thus, Marutyan reported ten real estate properties in total between Yerevan and Prague to the CEC.

However, after being elected Mayor, he submitted a declaration to the Corruption Prevention Commission (formerly the High-Ranking Officials’ Ethics Commission) which contained different data regarding his real estate holdings. Unlike the ten properties declared to the CEC, Mayor Marutyan mentioned 21 properties in total, all of which were listed as co-owned.

It is noteworthy that this significant discrepancy is not explained by the acquisition of new properties, as Marutyan did not purchase new assets between his submissions to the CEC and the Corruption Prevention Commission in 2018. In fact, he acquired these properties between March 2006 and June 2018, as indicated by his annual declaration for 2019, which was completed in a new format.

In light of the substantial differences between the documents submitted to the CEC and the Commission, we reached out to the Mayor for clarification. Marutyan stated that he did not include the Yerevan properties (two of which are a residential apartment and a garage in the Central Administrative District) in his CEC declaration in 2018 as they are registered in his wife's name. However, according to the official, he later included these properties in his joint ownership declaration with his wife because “according to the guidance provided by the Commission for the electronic register of declarations, jointly owned real estate should be declared by one spouse only as joint ownership.”

This implies that Marutyan relied on the Commission’s guidance and presented the property—registered in his wife's name but considered joint marital property under Armenian law—as co-owned. It seems that in this case, Marutyan could have also declared the properties registered in his wife's name to the CEC, as they are legally regarded as joint marital property.

As for why Marutyan first reported eight properties in Prague to the CEC, which became 17 in his submission to the Commission, he explained this occurred due to differing methodologies for declarations. “As of the day I assumed office in 2018, my wife and I jointly owned five apartments, one villa, and two plots of land in the Czech Republic (in 2018 we stated that part of these were registered in my name, while others were in our shared name: but as Mayor, I consider them all to be co-owned, relying on the previously mentioned legislative norms). However, these five apartments have minor outbuildings, and four of them also include parking spaces. These outbuildings and parking spaces were acquired simultaneously with the apartments through one contract and have the same cadastral registration number, which is why they were not counted as separate property units in the declaration submitted to the CEC. Conversely, according to the Commission's regulations, they were considered separate property units and separately recorded in the declarations,” Marutyan informed 'Hetq'.

Technical error and unsuccessful transaction

Interestingly, in his 2019 annual declaration, completed in the new format, the Mayor stated that in June 2018, he acquired one apartment, one plot of land, and one non-residential area in Prague, yet he had not reported this new property acquisition in his 2018 annual declaration. The official revealed that this referred to a property on Krejčíkova Street in Prague, which we have previously mentioned.

Marutyan explained that the reason for not including this property in his 2018 declaration was due to a technical error: “I indicated the existence of this property in both the declaration to the CEC and in the declaration upon assuming office in 2018. However, the acquisition of this apartment and plot of land was not recorded in my 2018 annual declaration due to a technical error, and we are currently working to rectify this mistake, after which the declaration will be republished on the Commission’s website as required,” he informed 'Hetq'.

As we reported in the previous article, part of the property that Marutyan owns in the Czech Republic is co-owned with his wife (one villa, one plot of land, and two apartments), as confirmed by the cadastre. Yet in his 2019 annual declaration, Iva Marutyan did not mention her properties acquired before 2019. The explanation is the aforementioned declaration completion guidance. According to this guidance from the Corruption Prevention Commission, jointly owned property must be declared by one spouse only as joint ownership. In this case, the Czech properties (as well as the Yerevan ones) were only declared by Hayk Marutyan.

However, Iva Marutyan stated in her 2018 annual declaration that she purchased a villa for 6.5 million Czech crowns (approximately $275,000 at current exchange rates) that year, indicating that in this instance, the purchase was reported not by the Mayor, but by his wife. Yet this property does not appear in her 2019 declaration. Hayk Marutyan explained that “this transaction did not go through, and corrections have already been made in the declaration, which will also be published on the Commission’s website as required.” In contrast, Iva Marutyan indicated in her 2019 declaration that she acquired three new properties last year, not in Prague, but in the town of Kutná Hora.

New Villa

According to Iva Marutyan's declaration, she purchased a villa in March 2019 (price: 3.76 million crowns or $160,000), as well as two plots of land (each for 100,000 crowns). The total cost of the properties amounted to 3.96 million crowns or $168,000. The Mayor's wife listed these properties as joint ownership; however, they do not appear in Hayk Marutyan's declaration as the joint property must be declared by one of the spouses. In the Czech cadastre, we found this property, where Iva Marutyan is the sole owner, but she presented it as joint ownership by again relying on the provisions of Armenian legislation.

According to the cadastre, the area of the villa is 64 square meters, which, in effect, is only the measurement of the first floor. The backyard (plot) is 97 square meters, while the front yard (plot) is 49 square meters, making the total lot area 210 square meters.

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