A DEMONSTRATION planned by British property buyers in the north was called off yesterday after the Turkish Cypriot leadership promised to hold an emergency meeting today about their problems.
Members of the 1,000-strong Homebuyers Pressure Group (HBPG) were ready to begin a daily 10-hour protest outside the Turkish Cypriot ‘parliament’ to publicise a myriad of problems they experience with real estate agents, lawyers and builders.
Dozens of Britons have been cheated out of their money and dream homes, and they said the administration in the north is not doing anything about it.
HBPG say their members are the victims of “an unlawful, unregulated and uncontrolled construction industry” in the north.
Initially yesterday’s protest was called off because they were told they did not have a permit to protest and that foreigners living in the north could not obtain such permits, a statement from HMPG said on their website.
But a second statement said they had been in contact with the office of Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat who, most likely out of sensitivity to the bad publicity such activity would engender, said was anxious that they call off the planned protest.
“Following numerous telephone conversations with the President’s office, the Consumer Association and long-term members of the HBPG the decision has been taken to temporarily postpone the Parliament protest,” the second statement said.
It said they had been guaranteed by a representative of Talat an emergency meeting would be held today to discuss means of solving “the widespread problems currently being endured by property buyers”
“If, having listened to their proposals, we are not satisfied that the problematic construction industry and related services, will be tackled in an acceptable approach, we will proceed with our protest,” the group said. “We have been assured that, if we take this course of action, it will be acceptable and legal.”
The group was to meet later yesterday to formulate their proposals.
In a new twist, one member of HBPG who posted a letter on Sunday to the organisation’s website said he took great exception to the statement made by Turkish Cypriot ‘Prime Minster’ Ferdi Sabit Soyer, that the programmes on British television highlighting the problems suffered by homebuyers in the north “were Greek Cypriot inspired and are therefore somehow, not true”.
“Some of the people whose plights were featured on these TV programmes are members of the HBPG and are staunch supporters of the fight for the rights of the Turkish Cypriot people and State to be recognised, they just ran out of avenues to be heard by the TRNC authorities, so took matters into their own hands,” said the letter.
It said the Turkish Cypriot administration was fully aware what was happening to “innocent people in the TRNC” and was warned many times that there was a time bomb ticking away within the growing number of cheated foreign homebuyers”.
But the administration, including Soyer, continued to drag its feet. “What did the authorities think would happen if they did not take action?” said the member.
“Now Mr Soyer is trying to muddy the water by suggesting these programmes were Greek Cypriot inspired, what’s next Mr Soyer, are you going to accuse the HBPG of being Greek Cypriot agents? Your assertion/assumption is an insult.”
“The next question which Turkish Cypriots should be asking is, where has all this money gone, not into the hospitals not into the schools – so where, answer please Mr Soyer?,” it added.
“The Turkish Cypriots have the right to demonstrate in London for their Human Rights and they have just demonstrated in Brussels for the same. However in the TRNC the government have said we foreigners cannot demonstrate as it is against the law to do so. Why is this the one law they are going to enforce?”
Case history
“IN SEPTEMBER 2003 my partner and I bought 1.25 donums land In Lapta for 26,000 GBP and designed our own house. In January 2004 we came for two weeks and found our own Cypriot builder to build our dream house. Cost to build house 117,500 GBP with plans costing 3,000 GBP. Moved here permanently in April 2004.
“Waited until August 2004 to start building. Had not yet received permission to purchase land but were told by both estate agent and architect that there was no need to wait.
“Also, building materials were increasing, so cost of house build would increase if we waited. August 2004 our lawyer drew up an agreement between builder and ourselves with a finish date of 30 June 2005 and late penalty clauses of 400 GPB per month for 4 months and 600 GBP per month thereafter.
“Building commenced although architect had not yet produced final plans for house and plot. When land was cleared we remarked to architect engineer that the plot seemed bigger than expected. He informed us that this is always the case. The foundations were dug and concrete was poured. Then things started to go wrong.
“Our house is approx 70 percent complete. They discovered that the West boundary line runs down the centre of our lounge, 3.5 meters onto neighbouring land.
“At the same time we discovered two separate sales contracts for our land. One officially stamped giving a price of 18,000GBP and the other – a doctored copy – giving a price of 28,000 GBP (remember, we paid 26,000).
“The site was closed down and it remains closed to this day.
“The part of land our house is incorrectly built on is an access road to land behind our neighbours house. We asked our other neighbour if they would sell us a piece of land (210 sq metres) to allow revised access. Yes, they would at a cost of 35,000 euro.
“The owners of the land our house is now built on said they would sell us all their land (approx 0.5 donums) at a reasonable cost. This reasonable cost turned out to be 60,000 GBP
“We turned both neighbours down on their asking prices. Our architect refuses to admit that the fault is his and claims that we made the mistake. Our builder refuses to say anything. We have now changed lawyers and are taking our builder to court for breach of contract and negligence.
“Our Agreement clearly states that the completion date is 30/6/05 Should there be a delay the builder will pay us compensation at 400GBP per month for four months and 600GBP per month thereafter.
“The Agreement also states that if the delay extends beyond the said four months the Employers (us) will be entitled to recover damages against the Contractor. We have not yet received any money from him and we are forced to continue renting a house we don’t particularly like at an exorbitant cost, whilst enduring the stress associated with the prospect of a Court Case.”
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