posted 10-22-2007 05:32 AM            

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Peter, sorry for the late reply - I was away in the mountains the last two weeks...

Yes, the Canton Bern is looking for buyers for the castles you mentioned, and also for the beautiful castle Trachselwald. This is the result of a reorganization of the districts - the castles were the seat of the offices of some of the old districts (since the revolution of 1798). Now the Canton has no need to keep them any longer and seems not eager to spend further millions of swiss francs to keep them in good condition. At least in Thun it was the city that had enough money to buy its famous castle from the Canton...

Forgein millionaires are indeed a problem when these objects come on the market. But until now there are many legal bounds for new owners - that they have to keep parts of the castles open to the public and can't change the buildings as they may like. So it is not possible to change a castle like Trachselwald into a private residence which nobody can ever visit (it would be a desaster also for tourism in those areas). This is also the reason why the familiy von Hessen has not found a buyer for the famous castle Tarasp in Graubünden so far. But there were foreign castle-buyers in the past that buyed such castles for representative reasons and then did nothing to maintain them. I don't know if this can be handled in the selling-contracts...
In short: I don't like this trend at all.