The Supreme Court of Russia has sent the dispute over Larisa Dolina’s apartment back for a new hearing. At the same time, ownership of the property currently remains with buyer Polina Lurie, a Novaya Gazeta Europe correspondent reported from the courtroom.
The hearing was not closed, despite a request from Lurie’s side, because of the case’s strong public resonance. The buyer’s lawyers said Lurie had no doubts about Dolina’s mental capacity at the time of the deal. Lawyer Svetlana Sviridenko said this view was influenced, among other things, by the fact that the singer was not registered with a psychoneurological clinic and had served as a trusted representative of Vladimir Putin during the presidential election.
Lurie’s side asked the court to evict Dolina from the disputed apartment, arguing that the sale had been completed, the seller had received the full amount, and the transfer of ownership had been registered in accordance with the law. Dolina’s lawyer, Maria Pukhova, said the singer was ready to return 112 million rubles to the buyer, although the defense maintained that Lurie should recover the money from the fraudsters. According to the outlet’s sources, Dolina plans to repay the amount over three years without indexing it to inflation.
Ilya Rusakov, representing the Prosecutor General’s Office, opposed Dolina’s forced eviction and proposed leaving the apartment to her while returning the money to Lurie. At the same time, he said Dolina’s position lacked legal grounds. According to the prosecutor, lower courts committed serious violations, including denying the buyer monetary compensation, but were justified in declaring the deal invalid because Dolina had acted under the influence of fraudsters.
“We believed in victory. We believed that this unjust decision would be overturned. We believed in our justice,” lawyer Svetlana Sviridenko said after the ruling was announced.
Applause broke out in the courtroom after the decision, and Polina Lurie burst into tears. Earlier, the Khamovnichesky District Court, followed by the appeal and cassation instances, had ruled the deal invalid because the seller had been mistaken. Despite making real payment, Lurie was left without the apartment and without compensation, as the courts said she could seek damages from the fraudsters themselves.
The Dolina case drew nationwide attention because of its implications for the secondary housing market. After the singer transferred the sale proceeds to fraudsters and then sought to void the transaction, lawyers began speaking of the “Dolina effect”: buyers may risk losing both the property and their money if a seller later claims fraud.