Former army chief under fire for official mansion approved by state-secretariat

Shortly after joining the opposition TISZA Party, former chief-of-staff of the Hungarian Defense Forces Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi was slammed by pro-government media for an expensive mansion he allegedly had built for himself. Átlátszó obtained documents about the mansion that show that it is owned by the state, and whoever used it, funding for the home could not have been approved by the chief-of-staff himself, but a member of the government.

Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi was chief-of-staff of the Hungarian Defense Forces from 2021, and unexpectedly removed in 2023 by order of since-resigned President Katalin Novák. In 2025, Ruszin-Szendi announced that he will join the new opposition party led by Péter Magyar as a defense expert, and gave a speech at the TISZA Party congress criticizing the military reforms undertaken by Defense Minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky.

Shortly after the speech, news portal Index.hu published photos of a mansion allegedly used by Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi as his official residence. The portal claimed that Ruszin-Szendi commissioned the villa for over 928 million HUFs, and was used by him from 18 December 2022 to 25 September 2023.

The house in Dunakeszi where the former Chief of General Staff lived. Photo by Katalin Erdélyi

In response to press inquiries, Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi wrote that the purchase, management and renovation of the property was carried out by “a back office” of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which indended to make it the official residence of the current and of all the future Chiefs of General Staff. He also claimed that he cannot provide details about the construction since everything was handled by this back office.

Still public property

We asked the Ministry of Defense who gave permission for the construction, and if there are any regulations in place regurding the price of official residencies, and if anyone had previously complained about the price of the property in Dunakeszi. We did not receive any reply from the Ministry, so we took a look at the relevant legislation and obtained the title deeds of the property.

The deed shows that the property was never owned by Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi: it was previously owned by private individuals and was bought in 2022 by HM Electronics, Logistics and Asset Management Zrt. (HM EI Zrt.).

This company is owned by the Hungarian state and its supervisory body is the Ministry of Defence.

It is unclear whether the Ministry can instruct its company to provide housing for a government or army official out of its own assets without compensation. Indeed, there was no mention in the Index article of the former Chief of General Staff (or HM) paying rent.

Who gave the approval?

Legistlation provides several options of who may have approved the purchase and construction of the mansion, but it is clear it had to be someone in the government.

If a member of the Hungarian Defence Forces wants an official residence, the procedure is as follows, according to the HM Instruction 20/2021 (19 May) on the budget management of defence organisations.

First of all, a housing referral must be initiated with the Ministry of Defence’s Office of Defence Economic Affairs (HM VGH) and the HM Property and Housing Support Supervision Department. Then the Chief of the Defence Staff (HVKF) and HM VGH will make a proposal for the transfer. Finally, the decision on the placement transfer is taken by the Secretary of State for Public Administration of the Ministry of Defence (HMGPA), acting on behalf of the Minister.

In short, the person in charge of such a decision would be the Secretary of State for Public Administration.

This position if filled by Árpád Vidoven, who is a former Fidesz MP who previously worked in the Cabinet Office of Prime Minister Antal Rogán.

It would have been impossible for the former chief-of-staff to order the construction of the house for himself behind the back of Árpád Vidoven. Requests for construction and renovation related to defence and force development (planned to be carried out with own means and personnel) are handled by the Ministry of Defense, but the permits are ultimately approved by the Secretary of State for Public Administration, which could have refused to approve the project.

Although a decree by the defense ministry (HM Decree 19/2009 (XII. 29.) on housing subsidies regulates the parameters for the housing that can be rented (e.g. number of rooms, etc.), it states that “the extent of the need shall not be taken into account for executive housing”, which means presumably there is no upper limit for Chiefs of Staff’s housing.

Orbán’s right-hand-man could be inolved

There is another possibility of how the mansion could have been approved: according to the then current legistlation regarding the legal status of military staff, the chief-of-staff is entitled to benefits from the State Secretary for Administration. The allowances of the State Secretary for Public Administration are determined by the Government Decree 275/2015 (IX.21.) on the allowances of state executives.

If this legistlation were invoked when providing the housing, the matter must have been referred to the State Secretary for Public Administration of the Prime Minister’s Office, since in this case, official housing can only be provided with his prior approval.

Viktor Orbán holds a cabinet meeting at the Carmelite Monastery on 16 November 2022. Next to him is Gábor Bordás, Minister of State for Public Administration of the Prime Minister’s Office. Photo by Prime Minister’s Press Office/Fischer Zoltán

In this case, the person rubber-stamping the project would have been Gábor Bordás, who was State Secretary for Public Administration at the Prime Minister’s Office in 2021, and as such a close aide to MP Viktor Orbán.

From official residence to private home

But even if the former Chief of Staff had somehow bypassed both secretaries of state and given direct instructions to HM EI Zrt., the company’s board would still have had to approve the construction, as the Board of Directors have to decide on all legal transactions and contracts exceeding HUF 100 million.

The board of directors includes another government member, Renáta Korom,

who was Deputy State Secretary for Legal and Administrative Affairs at the Ministry of Defence at the time of the construction. Korom joined the Defence Forces together with Vidoven, having previously worked in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office.

According to Ruszin-Szendi, “unlike many other past practices”, in his case at least he mansion “was not sold below market price”. He was likely referencing a case Átlátszó investigated in the past, wherein another former Chief of General Staff and later defense minister, Tibor Benkő and his wife, bought a house that used to belong to HM EI Zrt.

The property in Budaörs, which was owned by HM EI Zrt. until 2022, and since then by the Benkő family. Photo by Google Maps.

According to our information, the house in question was used as an official residence and was later purchased by Benkő as he left office. State-owned official housing usually has to be returned upon leaving office. However, in 2022, the Ministry of Defence has sold more than 1,600 properties, supposedly to pay off debts, with the former ministerial residence among them. How much this property in Budaörs cost is not yet known. What is certain though is that it looks at least as fancy as Ruszin-Szendi’s former residence.