Minister János Lázár spent hundreds of millions to buy land around his castle

For years, one of our readers has been collecting announcements about transportation and construction minister János Lázár’s land purchases in his hometown, Hódmezővásárhely. He found discrepancies in his asset declaration, which misses a 50 million HUF land purchase loan, and a seemingly false claim Lázár made when trying to exercise his pre-emption right at a land purchase.

“We will prevent domestic and international financial capital from indebting Hungarian farmers through financial means”, János Lázár promised when talking about farmland ownership in 2015 a forum in Hódmezővásárhely. He also said that “the Hungarian government will have to defend the land ownership structure created by the new land law for the next six months”.

The „defence” was so successful that a year later the now Fidesz-affiliated news site Origo reported hat János Lázár’s relatives had bought land in Csongrád County for a total of HUF 753 million. Earlier, Lázár, then the Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office admitted that his father and uncle had also successfully participated in land auctions.

In 2018, former Agriculture Ministry official József Ángyán released a report about the land accumulation of top politicians’ families. It showed that Lázár’s father, uncle, cousin and his wife also bought large swathes of land: the family together took more than 500 hectares, 4.3 percent of the state-owned land in the county.

A feudal estate complete with castle

János Lázár has continued to buy land around the Batida hunting castle in Hódmezővásárhely in recent years. In 2016, we have already reported that

„the hunting company that János Lázár is involved in has acquired hunting rights for twenty years on the largest hunting ground in Csongrád County. Meanwhile, a secretive lawyer with multiple links to Lázár is building a huge hunting lodge in Batida, a district of Hódmezővásárhely. The local government has amended the local building regulations to make the construction of this large-scale project visible from the air, and the construction site is guarded by security guards. The locals also associate the large-scale project with their former mayor, now the minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s Office, but he said to Átlátszó that he only knew about the project by right of a neighbour and was not personally involved.”

Lázár, who was appointed Minister of Construction and Transport in 2022, has since become the owner of the company that built the hunting lodge, and most recently posted photos from there with his family.

This same castle was also in the center of our investigation of a road reconstruction by the Hungarian Public Road company: the public agency spent half a billion forints to renovate a road leading to the castle, despite it having hardly any traffic.

For years, one of our reader has been collecting notices that János Lázár has bought land in Hódmezővásárhely. Our reader provided 11 documents to Átlátszó: in one of them, Lázár claimed to own land he had nothing to do with in connection with his pre-purchase. We searched in vain for the minister’s land purchase loan of nearly 50 million HUF in his asset declarations.

Land and loans

In 2021, Lázár bought 23 hectares of land for HUF 57 million. According to the announcement, the Fidesz politician would have borrowed 45.8 million forints from Takarékbank Zrt. for this, which is 90 percent of the purchase price –

this is not stated in his 2021, 2022, 2023, nor 2024 asset declarations, even though the law clearly states that loans and depts should also be reported.

His 2022 declaration of assets, available on the Parliament’s website, includes an investment loan of HUF 38.9 million. According to his most recent asset declaration from 2024, Lázár’s investment loan has melted down to HUF 24 million (so he has repaid HUF 14.9 million of it in two years), and his other loans have also decreased over the years. However, according to the recent title deed of the 23-hectare Batida plot, there is still a HUF 45.8 million loan on the land, which has not changed.

The minister bought a total of 58.8 hectares of land under the posted contracts, for which he paid HUF 183.3 million, partly from the aforementioned loan.

The castle with grey in the middle, in red the land bought by János Lázár

False claim of ownership

János Lázár bought 8,895 hectares of farmland in May 2023 for HUF 35.6 million. According to clause 4 of the contract,

“The purchaser is entitled to the right of first refusal pursuant to Section 8 (1) (c) of Paragraph 1 of Article 8 of the Land Traffic Act 1. He exercises his right of first refusal in this place of priority. The contracting parties declare that the buyer is the exclusive owner of the neighbouring properties Hódmezővásárhely, 01648/16 and Hódmezővásárhely 01648/19.”

The area referred to in the contract, Hódmezővásárhely 01648/19, is a 7-hectare field, which was purchased by János Lázár in 2019.

However, the other plot of land, Hódmezővásárhely 01648/16, does not list Lázár on the title deed, neither at the time of the contract nor since then.

The land actually belongs to several other individuals.

We have asked Lázár’s Ministry of Construction and Transport, whether it is possible that the Minister has claimed land that he does not own, and if so, why did this happen. We also asked János Lázár how much he had spent on land purchases in the Hódmezővásárhely area in the last 3 years. The Ministry’s Press Office replied:

“Although the questions sent to the Press Office regarding the land purchases of Minister János Lázár do not specify specific land, we can inform you that János Lázár has acted in full compliance with the laws strictly regulating transactions in all his land purchases. In the case of contracts where the Minister has indicated his capacity as a neighbour in the order of preemption, he has in each case already owned the adjacent land parcel(s) – but has never purchased land by exercising his right of first refusal. These have been verified by the authorities, the competent land office and the National Chamber of Agriculture, and in all cases approved in accordance with the laws in force. All the land purchased, together with the title of acquisition, is listed in János Lázár’s annual declaration of assets to Parliament. In the same declarations of assets, under the heading Debt to credit institutions (point III/2), you will also find precise information on the loans of the Minister for investment, including land purchases.”

It therefore remains a mystery how the contract came to say that Lazar owns the land when he does not, as the Ministry failed to answer this question. We have asked Miklós Ligeti, legal director of Transparency International Hungary, about the title deeds. Ligeti explained that no one has exclusive ownership over the plot in question, possibly making the contract invalid, as it contains a falsehood.