Property – The Long Arm Of The TRNC Law.‏

 

 By Chris Elliott……

Cyprusscene.com  receive many helpful comments on its articles which we publish for the benefit of our readers.

We have just received the following letter concerning a property case which should give great comfort to those who may be having property purchase issues here in the TRNC.

“Dear Chris,

You are probably aware that our court case has now finished and through the legal process we have fortunately received our Kocan and a suitable amount of compensation.

Mary and I thought it may be useful to share our experience in the hope that it will inspire others to have confidence in the TRNC legal system.

Our dream was to live in a warm climate and Northern Cyprus was the ideal location to retire to, so in May 2006 we signed a contract with a UK/TRNC developer and we waited patiently for our villa to be built.

Having been informed that our villa would be completed in September 2007 we sold up in the UK, packed our cases and with great excitement looked forward to our new life. We cannot describe the frustration and anger when we arrived at the site to be greeted with a concrete shell and a barrage of excuses from our developer. The next 24 months were horrendous as we battled with our developer on a daily basis to finish our villa, which eventually he did.

The next battle was the parcelisation of the site and the transfer of our Title Deeds. The broken promises and excuses continued, despite giving our developer a further 15 months to deliver the terms of our contract. So reluctantly in May 2012, we took out litigation for breach of contract. We also put in a compensation claim for the money we had spent trying to get the villa up to standard.

Initially, the legal process was extremely slow as our developer, through the pressure of the court, began the parcelisation process. Sadly, our developer continued with his excuses and delay tactics. Then two years into the case and 30 court hearings, our solicitor chose to place a freeze on the developer’s assets and within 9 months the parcelisation process was completed and our Title Deeds were available for transfer.

The next stage was our compensation claim, which clearly our developer was unhappy about. Thinking that we should just be grateful to get the deeds, our solicitor was persistent and using the freeze order as leverage, he successfully negotiated a satisfactory amount of compensation. Within a week, the compensation was paid and our Title Deeds for both the land and property were transferred into our name.

Our case lasted 3 years and I attended court hearings on 43 separate occasions. During this period, we had two judges presiding and we were on one occasion warned off and subjected to intimidation but we didn’t give in. Despite the length of time it took to complete our case, we found the system to be fair and both judges were extremely thorough and professional.

As for our solicitor, his fees were reasonable, he worked to a strategy and he always found time to meet us. Nothing was too much trouble and he was highly professional.

I hope our story gives some hope to those going through the same process as we did, as we realise that many others have had awful experiences but there are some success stories which rarely get published. Our solicitor also informs us that 80% of the cases registered at the court are settled without going to a full trial which was happily our outcome.

Art and Mary Watson”.