ANO Deputy Rented a Flat for Five Years From a Company He Himself Oversees

Czech Parliament deputy Jiří Richter of the ANO party spent five years renting a municipal flat from the company Chomutovská bytová — despite being chairman of its supervisory board himself. The story was reported by Deník N and concerns a 2+1 flat on 28. října Street in Chomutov.

Renovation instead of rent

The condition for moving in was that the tenant would renovate the flat, with the initial budget set at around 160,000 crowns. In practice, the company credited the deputy with 194,000 crowns' worth of renovation work and began gradually deducting this amount from his monthly rent.

In 2020, the rent stood at 3,285 crowns a month and rose gradually over time. The renovation credit covered his rent payments all the way until March 2025 — meaning the deputy effectively paid nothing for housing for almost five years. Only from April to November last year did he pay around 4,500 crowns a month, plus a few hundred crowns for utilities.

According to Chomutovská bytová, the deputy paid a total of roughly 35,000 crowns in rent over the five-year period.

Technically, everything by the book

The rental rules did not require tenants to prove they owned no other property — only that they had no debts and could provide proof of employment. "As far as we know, he did live in the flat, though not permanently, due to his work," the company's director, Soňa Skalická, told the outlet.

The deputy himself offered a terse comment: "I received the flat in 2019 following a public tender. I moved in and used it. I paid my rent and utilities properly," Richter told the outlet in late June, declining to answer further questions.

Richter has led ANO's regional organization in Ústí nad Labem since 2016 and has been a deputy since 2017. For a long time he held a prominent position within the party as election manager, but stepped down from that role in mid-May 2025. Party leader Andrej Babiš explained the move by saying Richter would now focus exclusively on his work in the Ústí Region.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz