Not much is known about the sale of the Birtrange Castle belonging to the Luxembourg Red Cross, but it is known at least that a purchase offer has been pre-accepted and that the reserve price of €5.2 million has been reached or exceeded. Furthermore, the Syndicat Intercommunal Nordstad has communicated that its bid was not successful.

However, it is not known how many purchase proposals were submitted to the notary, nor the amount of the purchase offer or the name of the new owner. According to RTL, the new owner is “a private investor from Luxembourg and is ready to formalise the purchase once the legal procedures have been completed.”

The property, straddling the communes of Schieren, Ettelbruck and Colmar-Berg in the centre-north, was bequeathed to the NGO by Baroness Claudine de Broqueville, who died in January 2018.

After several months of reflection, the Red Cross decided to put it up for sale, believing that the restoration and maintenance costs of such a property would be too costly compared to the main missions of this charitable organisation. The Red Cross therefore put the property up for sale at a notary's office through a sealed bid. The bidding closed on Friday 12 March at 5pm.

After waiting for the necessary time to be sure that all the bids, including postal bids, were received, the notary proceeded to the opening of the bids and the highest bid was selected. Finally, it should be noted that the proceeds of the sale to the Red Cross will be reinvested in the construction project of the Red Cross House in Howald.

This article was originally published in French on Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano