Hotel Punkaharju | The authorities became interested in the new owner: an investigation request was made to the police

Hotel The businessman who bought Punkaharju has been in the teeth of the Finnish authorities in recent years because of his hotel business. He has also recently been requested for an investigation related to real estate receivables to the Southeastern Finland police.

Hotel Punkaharju was in the headlines again at the beginning of January, when the bankruptcy estate of Punkaharju Luontomatkilu oy announced that it had sold the hotel and its furniture to AK Properties oy from Kotka.

The Kotka company that bought the hotel is owned by a businessman Artur Karamanwho is a US citizen of Estonian Russian descent.

Karaman's business includes Hotel Jokipuisto and Beach Hotel Santalahti in Kotka.

Karaman was one of the three partners in Hotel Scandinavian oy, which ran the hotel Leikaria in Kotka. Hotel Scandinavian was declared bankrupt in December 2022 due to insolvency.

The hotel was an object of interest of the Southern Finland Regional Administration Office (avi) already in 2020. At that time, avi did an occupational health and safety inspection of the hotel and found many deficiencies.

In 2021, Avi ordered Scandinavia to pay a 43,000 euro negligence fee for violating the Customer Liability Act when it did not sufficiently investigate the backgrounds of its contractual partners. The contract partners were two Estonian and one Bulgarian company, which operate in the cleaning and maintenance sector.

Avi also noticed that the responsible persons of the customer and the partners were the same people, and the company paid too low wages to the foreign employees of its contractual partners.

Avi ordered an increased fee because, in its opinion, it was a deliberate neglect of the obligation to clarify.

“There were worrying features in the customer's operations from the point of view that the customer knew when entering into the subcontracting agreement that the employees sent to foreign countries would not be paid the salary according to the Finnish collective agreement. The same is also repeated in the contract related to construction”, says the inspector of the area of ​​responsibility for occupational health and safety of the Regional Administration of Southern Finland Pauli Ollikka.

According to the law, the subscriber is obliged to pay a default fee if the subscriber has entered into a contract, even though he must have known that the other party does not intend to fulfill his payment obligations. The negligence fee was increased by the orderliness, intentionality and effort of the customer's actions to gain profit for himself.

Male the hotel business is also under investigation by the taxman. It appears from the recent notification of delay by the administrator of the Scandinavian bankruptcy estate to the Kymenlaakso district court. It says that the debtor settlement and estate inventory are delayed, among other things, because a tax audit is underway.

The Southeastern Finland police, on the other hand, confirm that an investigation request has recently been made against the man, which concerns real estate receivables related to previous hotel operations, about 100,000 euros.

For now, the matter is only in the preliminary investigation phase. It means that the police find out whether a crime has occurred in the case at all or whether it is, for example, a civil dispute. The police will decide later whether to start a preliminary investigation in the case.

According to HS's information, the investigation request concerns the fact that Karaman, as a tenant of Leikar's property, failed to pay rent and other expenses related to the property.

HS reached out to Karaman for comment but was unable to reach him.

Itä-Savo-lehti, on the other hand, reported on Thursday that Karaman's real estate company AK Properties is an indebted company, which, according to the report of Finland's Asiakastieto, has been classified in the highest risk category and removed from the advance collection register.

According to the financial statements for 2022, the company has about 882,000 euros in debt and almost no income, the newspaper says. The company's turnover in 2022 was 7,000 euros and the loss was around 16,000 euros.

Historically The story of the valuable Hotel Punkaharju, which is protected by the Finnish Museum Agency, has had several twists and turns in recent years.

At the beginning of January, the hotel was finally sold to Karamani, who is relatively unknown in Finland, for a price that has not been disclosed to the public.

During the last year, the bankruptcy estate tried to sell the hotel several times.

First came an offer of 745,000 euros, but the entrepreneurs who made it withdrew their offer in September. In November, 310,000 euros was offered for the hotel in a new auction, but the offer did not go through.

From 2015 until the hotel's bankruptcy, its face was an entrepreneur Got Hoyer. In an interview with HS, he hoped that the new owner would continue the work.

“I wish them luck in nurturing cultural heritage values, which I think is extremely important.”