BRS were right to want to investigate TRNC residency and entry rules

Introduction by Chris Elliott…

I received the following sad tale of friends I have known for the past 15 years of how they were treated on their recent arrival for a holiday in the TRNC and clearly there was no Hoşgeldiniz (welcome) or offers of help resolve problems which the country needs to understand, if it wants tourists and home owners to want to come to Northern Cyprus to spend their time and money here.

Readers mail (names withheld)….

Hi Chris.

I have been reading about people saying the Britsh Residency Society (BRS) were wrong to publish their thoughts that things are changing in residency and entry rules. I will try to outline the problems my wife and I encountered this year. A brief outline is we have been visiting for various lengths of time over the past 20 odd years as we love North Cyprus.

It started with holidays and eventually we purchased a villa. Initially we could only use it for 2 or 3 weeks a year due to work. On retirement we extended this to 2 holidays of 6 weeks duration and latterly 2 by 10 weeks, on the odd occasion managing 12 weeks holiday.

Then due to the dreaded Covid we were unable to visit from November 2019 until April of this year, 2022. At the border we were asked for the first time for our Kocan. We didn’t have it as it hadn’t been requested before so we were given a 30 day stamp and told to go to the department of Immigration to extend it to the 49 days we hoped to stay for. We duly did this and filled in a form for both my wife and I and handed it in. When asking how we would know we had been granted the additional 19 days or more, we were given a photocopied piece of paper, hand written, which said if all is ok we will not contact you but if there is a problem we will contact you.

So that’s it and we spent the whole 49 days wondering if all was OK as under those instructions you can’t be sure . We duly left and approached the border with trepidation but all was well and so on we went to Larnaca on our journey home to the UK.

We now turned up for our second visit on 7th of September 2022 at the Metehan crossing just turned 2 o’clock in the morning, copies of Kocan in hand when we arrived.. We were told I was ok but my wife had overstayed last visit by 19 days and a fine of approximately £21 a day or £400 plus in total had to be paid. Our arguments fell on deaf ears so I gave the requested £400 to pay the fine. After counting it we were told it had to be in Turkish Lira. We pointed out we had no Turkish Lira as we had come from the UK via Larnaca. Luckily our taxi driver had enough in Lira so we exchanged monies and we handed over 8,000 plus Turkish Lira. This was then counted out twice only for the counter representative to now say he couldn’t work the computer. Various suggestions then emerged about driving to Ercan Airport so the border guard there could enter the money into the computer system, saying I would have to pay for the taxi and extras and this idea was then discarded. I suggested they give me a written receipt or a note to visit the police in Girne where I could pay the fine the next day and these offers were refused.

Our taxi driver had to go as he had planned work in the morning and we had been told we would have to sit on a bench for the next 5 hours, from 3 am to 8 am when someone would come who could work the computer. I asked them if they had parents the same ages as us ( I am 76 and my wife 80 years old,) would they expect them to spend 5 hours on a bench after having been up early and travelling all day and night. No comment was received!

We were both sitting on the bench when my wife wanted the use of a toilet at about 3-20 am. She was shown the direction to walk in and left to go there. She used the toilet but when stepping back out into the darkness, she stepped off the high steps, no handrail and tumbled to the floor, breaking her hip. This resulted in an ambulance being called and eventually an operation with five weeks in recovery after leaving hospital. We had some amazing help from people including a border policeman so our opinions of the islands people remains as high, if not higher than ever. However, both my wife and I never wish to be subjected ever again to the petty officialdom that eventually led us to the events of that night!

We think my wife’s 19 days overstay penalty was because only my name is on the Kocan. but they have over 20 years records of us coming and going together on the same date on their system People say you could have residency which I’d agree with if we lived in Northern Cyprus but how would we have maintained it for the two and a half years we were away due to Covid? Why have residency if you are visiting for only 6 weeks at a time but if that is required why not issue a one off document that you can renew by one visit to the police station to pay for each year. After all, its only registration and money the TRNC desperately want.

Whichever way it goes I doubt it will affect my wife or I as we decided we didn’t want to be subject to the vagaries of this bureaucracy again so we will sell up our lovely holiday home and will look for other holiday destinations elsewhere.

We genuinely love North Cyprus, the people are so good and kind but I’m afraid the Government departments, especially Immigration leave a lot to be desired. Whilst enduring this experience as an anecdote, I read of a woman with 6 children crossed the border and apparently one was said to have overstayed and was fined for one day. Obviously a typo by someone half asleep but it becomes official and there is no argument you can put forward as you have no proof of extra days application or if an overstay fine is justified.

On a closing note when my wife had her accident at the immigration post, my wife’s was taken away in an ambulance to hospital where she had a replacement hip operation with 4 days in hospital  costing approximately £5000 and her passport was retained in the meanwhile by the immigration control as the fine couldn’t be paid and I was given a photocopy of her passport.

We then had to return to the border control with her when she was fit to travel again so we could get her passport back and pay the £400 plus fine.

As they say, you can’t beat the system, ridiculous though it may be!

So this is just one person’s experience but it certainly shows that some changes have been implemented, albeit at local level as the BRS led us to believe and do need investigating.

Thank you and best wishes with your ongoing very informative CyprusScene publications