Twenty Months On, Žofín Still Has the Wrong Tenant

Žofín, the neo-Renaissance hall on Slovanský ostrov that Prague 1 owns, was supposed to change hands on 15 January 2025. Representatives of the district turned up that day to take possession. The sitting tenant, Agentura NKL, declined to leave. Twenty months later it is still there, and on 19 August Prague 1 published an account of why — the first time the district has set out the whole sequence in one place.

A tender after thirty years

The lease between Prague 1 and Agentura NKL dates from 1994. It was amended in 2010, which set the term to run to 31 December 2024 and added a clause about negotiating what happened next. That clause is the whole dispute.

Ahead of the expiry the district commissioned consultants to assess how the building was being run and to draft terms for reletting it. The council approved competition conditions on 30 April 2024. Three bidders entered a two-round process, Agentura NKL among them. In September 2024 the council picked Zátiší Catering Group, on a ten-year lease at CZK 20.4 million a year. Agentura NKL had been paying roughly CZK 10 million.

The two sides read the 2010 clause differently. Agentura NKL treats it as an option that entitled it to a ten-year extension. Prague 1, citing legal opinions, says it created only a duty to negotiate, not an automatic right to continue — and that no amendment extending the lease beyond 2024 was ever concluded.

The competition held; the eviction did not

The litigation splits into two strands, and they have gone opposite ways.

The first attacked how the new operator was chosen. Společnost Obecní dům challenged the conduct of the competition; the court dismissed it in April 2025, and the Prague Municipal Court upheld that in September 2025. Agentura NKL separately challenged the validity of the Zátiší contract itself. On 21 April 2026 the appellate court confirmed that the competition had run according to its stated rules and that the contract between Prague 1 and Zátiší Catering Group is valid.

The second strand — ending the old lease and clearing the building — has produced nothing final in twenty months. The district court for Prague 1 held in February 2025 that the district had no obligation to sign an extension, and in March 2025 granted the eviction. The appellate court annulled both decisions on procedural grounds. In December 2025 the district court joined three related proceedings and again found for Prague 1: no obligation to extend, the palace to be vacated, a contractual penalty to be paid. Agentura NKL appealed. In June 2026 the appellate court annulled that judgment too, again for procedural defects, returned it to the first-instance court and ordered that it be assigned to a different judge.

So the contract is confirmed and the keys are not. Prague 1 makes the distinction explicitly: upholding the Zátiší lease neither terminated the old tenancy nor authorised anyone to clear the building.

Why the district will not simply change the locks

Agentura NKL continues to occupy the palace and asserts its own legal claim to it. Prague 1 says it therefore cannot substitute forced entry or a lock change for a court ruling, because that would invite further litigation, damages claims and risk to the running of a historic building. Handover can come by agreement, by voluntary departure, or by an enforceable judgment, and the district does not have one.

For the period since 31 December 2024 it is claiming compensation for use, derived from a rent figure set by expert valuation. The final sum depends on how long the occupation lasts and how the cases end. Zátiší Catering Group is standing by its contract, says it is ready to take over, and is working with the district on the technical and operational mechanics of a handover and on continuity for events already in the diary.

The public is right to ask why the handover is taking so long. The court has already confirmed the validity of the contract with Zátiší, but the first-instance court has to rule again on the eviction. Until then we are pursuing Prague 1's financial claims and preparing the takeover so that we do not lose more time once the dispute ends. In managing public property we have to act with the care of a prudent steward. We cannot choose a hasty solution that would expose the district to further litigation or damages claims.

— Tomáš Heres, deputy mayor of Prague 1 for finance and property (translated from the district's Czech statement)

The gap between the two rents is about CZK 10 million a year. Read against a case that has now been remanded twice on procedural grounds rather than on the merits, that figure is the measure of what a municipal landlord loses while the courts work through a clause drafted in 2010.