Pop singer Larisa Dolina was forced to vacate her former Moscow apartment under court orders, ending a months-long standoff surrounding the “scam” sale of the property that rattled Russia’s housing market.
“The keys have been handed over to us. Everyone has been removed from the residency registry,” Svetlana Sviridenko, a lawyer representing buyer Polina Lurye, told the Interfax news agency.
Lurye, a 34-year-old entrepreneur, bought the five-room apartment in Moscow’s prestigious Khamovniki district from Dolina in 2024. It was later discovered that the 70-year-old singer had been deceived into selling her apartment by fraudsters posing as FSB agents.
However, the scammers were also in contact with Lurye, who, unaware of the fraud scheme, paid them 112 million rubles ($1.4 million) for Donlina’s apartment.
A subsequent court battle between Lurye and Dolina over who rightfully held ownership of the Moscow apartment captured headlines in Russia for months, with three courts initially ruling in favor of Dolina.
The rulings allowing Dolina to keep her apartment set a precedent, dubbed the “Dolina effect,” in which there was a risk that property sellers could walk away from deals with both the money for the sale and the property itself. Court cases over such incidents have increased by up to 20% over the last year.
But in December, the Russian Supreme Court ruled that Lurye was the apartment’s rightful owner, which was seen as a rare win for those without Kremlin connections in Russia’s judicial system.
Last week, Sviridenko said she had sent an eviction request on behalf of her client as Dolina missed the deadline to vacate the disputed apartment amid reports that she was vacationing in the United Arab Emirates.
A Moscow court in November sentenced three men and one woman to between four and seven years in prison on accusations of orchestrating the scam involving Dolina and Lurye.
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