TERESZTENYE, Hungary -- When the first signs of trouble appeared, the ink wasn't yet dry on the deed for Laszlo Sifter's and his wife's new house in the seemingly safe and picturesque Hungarian village of Teresztenye.
Sifter and wife Agnes said they believed they’d found a rustic home in a quaint village with just two streets in northern Hungary, where their four kids could grow in a healthy, rural environment.
But it was during a phone call with the mayor in 2020, just as the purchase was being settled, that things began to take a strange turn: The mayor bragged to Sifter that the village had special legal rights that gave them power of approval over any home purchase.
“There is nothing like it in any other village,” Mayor Attila Brogli said in a recorded phone conversation. He declined to be interviewed by RFE/RL.
He went on to explain that the village had declared every home and land plot a cultural heritage object, which meant no one could buy unless the village was willing to waive its own purchase rights. The entire scheme had one key advantage, Brogli said: The town was 100 percent “Roma free.”
As Sifter’s wife put it, “The local council wanted to know who wanted to buy a house here, and they could filter out buyers so that only those thought to be a good fit for the settlement would buy it.”
The Sifters, who are part Roma but don’t look outwardly ethnic, apparently hadn’t been flagged by the village and their purchase went through.
But that hardly meant their troubles were over.
They were soon confronted by neighbors who threatened them, and at one point three men jumped Sifter and attacked him, breaking his ribs. The entire incident was caught on security cameras.
Then Sifter himself recorded attacks and assaults from others, including one in which a man jumped onto the hood of his car. In another, a man dropped his pants in front of Sifter, who had his children with him in his car.
Even the village’s deputy mayor hit Sifter with a car door and knocked a cell phone from his hand when he went to see her to ask about school transport services that had been denied to his children.
As for the town’s right to pre-approve home purchases, civil rights attorney Balazs Toth said, “I've never heard of such a thing, to be honest.”
“Basic law guarantees the right to freedom of movement and the right to property. The right to acquire real estate and live where you want is clearly a fundamental right contained within the law. Any discrimination in this regard is certainly illegal.”
The Sifters complained to the Hungarian Equal Treatment Authority, but the organization ruled that, because they had succeeded in buying a house, discrimination could not be proved.
Meanwhile, plainclothes police began harassing Sifter, he said, once throwing him to the ground in front of his house as he tried to show them his ID.
Dozens of legal complaints have been filed by the family and the village against each other and now the Sifters have security cameras surrounding their house and yard.
The Sifters have considered moving away, Agnes Sifter said, but have decided to stick it out. To leave would be to give in, she stressed, to the forces of discrimination.
“They are wrong. I didn't graduate from law school so that a mayor can decide where I can live and where I can't.”
