{"id":118667,"date":"2025-05-21T02:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T02:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/118667\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T02:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T02:45:09","slug":"russia-sanctions-emptied-these-london-mansions-now-theyre-falling-apart-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/118667\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia sanctions emptied these London mansions. Now they\u2019re falling apart. \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another concerned neighbor said that shards of glass and pieces of debris had fallen off the buildings onto their property. They were particularly worried about damage to the structures from rain, as many of the windows are smashed, allowing water to get in easily.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The residents’ local MP is, serendipitously, Westminster\u2019s biggest anti-corruption champion. Joe Powell wrote to Foreign Office Minister<\/a> Stephen Doughty <\/strong>on April 28, urging the government to take action on the \u201curgent need to manage any unintended consequences of sanctions, particularly in the property sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs time goes on, we’re going to increasingly have a situation where we’ve got buildings that are in neglect,\u201d Powell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"sanctions legislation means paying for upkeep or making even essential repairs is extremely difficult.\u00a0| Eleanor Myers\/POLITICO<\/p>\n

Davidovich bought the premises when they were already in a sorry state \u2014 and was granted permission<\/a> to turn them into luxury apartments (he was ultimately unable to do so, however, after being sanctioned). But as time goes on, assuming Russian oligarchs remain sanctioned, many other dwellings will start to crumble, their dilapidated appearance an unintended consequence of a well-intentioned policy.<\/p>\n

No entry<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once a property is sanctioned, its owner can do nothing to increase its value. While paying for upkeep is technically possible, the process is slow and complicated, according to lawyers POLITICO spoke with. To maintain the estate, sanctioned oligarchs need to apply for a general license from the Treasury\u2019s sanctions watchdog, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are overwhelmed at the moment, as you can imagine, since the Russian war started,\u201d Angeilka Hellwegger, a sanctions lawyer at Rahman Ravelli, said of the office. \u201cSo this means if you have a licensing application, for example if you want to repair a window, it takes them a lot of time to actually get this done.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another concerned neighbor said that shards of glass and pieces of debris had fallen off the buildings onto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,332,7339,2663,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-118667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-russia-sanctions","14":"tag-sanctions","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}