Benjamina Karić bought 70 square meters for below market price and in secret, but received 136 square meters of illegally renovated apartment in Centar

By: Almedin ŠIŠIĆ/ Valterportal.ba

A few hours after Valter published a story on July 8th proving that the Mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karić, secretly bought an apartment in the city center for below market price, the real estate agency Aura nekretnine, which was selling the apartment, promptly removed the ad and deleted all data.

However, the ad, which we saved and archived in time, contains several key and extremely important pieces of information.

NEW APARTMENT IN THE CENTER, CIPS REGISTRATION IN NOVO SARAJEVO

The first and most shocking fact is that the mayor bought a fictitious 70 square meters, but in reality a five-room, renovated apartment of as much as 136 square meters, almost double the size! And for only 230,000 marks, which is the amount of the loan taken out (or 300,000 KM, as she claims).

Photo: Ad from “Aura nekretnina” that “disappeared without a trace”

From all of this, it follows that the Mayor of Sarajevo has severely misled the public, and on several grounds.

First, with her statement, after Valter revealed the secret purchase of the apartment, that it was about “about seventy square meters and an additional shed,” which raises the question of property tax registration. In a PR interview with Klix, immediately after we released the story, she stated that “her husband and she have not yet managed to pay the property tax,” so it will be interesting to see if “Benjamina Karić and her husband” will pay tax for 70, or 136 square meters (or if they have already paid), which is an enormous difference in another solid apartment.

The next untruth arises from the claim that her husband and she bought the apartment in the very center “due to family expansion and to be closer to her husband’s work,” although she had transferred her CIPS residence to her mother’s apartment in Grbavica shortly before. Therefore, a new question arises – how does the mayor intend to live in the Municipality Centar, while being the mayor of the Municipality Novo Sarajevo, for which she ran? However, these are questions for the Central Election Commission, inspections, and the rule of law.

APARTMENT ILLEGALLY RENOVATED AND EXPANDED TO INCLUDE ANOTHER APARTMENT

The fact that the apartment in a building that is a national monument, or within the scope of the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL), was illegally and unlawfully renovated is another in a series of irregularities. Such buildings are protected by the state and its institutions, and any intervention, especially reconstruction, is not permitted without prior approvals and permits.

These were never obtained for the apartment the mayor bought, as confirmed by two key competent institutions to Valter. The President of the Commission for the Preservation of National Monuments of BiH, Anđelina Ošap Gaćanović, stated in response to our portal that the Commission “has not issued an opinion on the conformity of the renovation and expansion intervention of the attic apartment at Maršala Tita Street 19 with the provisions of the Decision on HUL”.

Mayor Karić, therefore, secretly bought a five-room apartment, well below market price, in a building whose facade renovation was subsequently included in the public procurement plan during her apartment selection process, for the interior renovation and expansion of which (by as much as 65 square meters) the necessary approvals were not obtained, which she had to know – and undoubtedly knew.

Precisely during the negotiations of Benjamina Karić for the purchase of the apartment with the previous owner Sejdo Sejdi, the reconstruction of the facade at Titova 19 was subsequently and as a priority included in the public procurement plan, which was amended because of it.

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