Kulaksiz 5 letter template – tell your MPs, MEPs and local newspapers

[MP/MEP/Newspaper’s Address]

[Date]

[Your address]

Dear [name]

Please help a group  of  19 British,  ex -patriot  pensioners living in Cyprus,  aged 60 – 87 years old and known collectively as  ‘Kulaksiz 5’

The above pensioners all have two things in common, they dreamt of a home in the sun in the autumn of their lives and they have been cruelly ‘ripped off’ by the builder, landowner, bank and the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) system which allowed it to happen.

Between 2004 and late 2005 these pensioners signed Contracts of Sale and paid for their dream homes. In every case, the Contract guaranteed there was no mortgage, encumbrance or lien on the land and undertook to keep it so until transfer of title could take place. In March and November of 2005, without the knowledge or consent of the purchasers, the builder Abdurrahman Guney of Kulaksiz Construction and landowner Yuksel Yilmaz were given a mortgage by AKFINANS BANK LIMITED using the land title deeds bearing their names, which according to the contract they no longer owned, as security. The banks did not make even the most cursory of investigations which would have established that the land had been sold and fully paid for and the deeds were ready to be transferred into the new owners’ names as soon as TRNC legal requirements were fulfilled. Incidentally, the Manager and Part owner of the Bank later admitted that he was ‘best friends’ with the land owner and was likely to have known the situation anyway.

The smaller of the two mortgages, for £1 600.00, was taken out in March 2005 and the larger mortgage of 100 000TL (about £40 000) was taken in November 2005. They both had interest rates of 80% per quarter compound applied to them. It might be asked why someone would borrow on such ridiculous terms but when you consider that they had already been fully paid for the property they were borrowing against, they would be risking nothing in order to get the loan.

In early 2008, and while the Kulaksiz 5 residents were still waiting for permission purchase, a necessary permit to allow the property to be transferred into their names, the law changed so that all foreign purchasers were allowed to register their Contracts of sale at the Land Registry Office in order to prevent mortgages being placed on properties contracted to be sold. It was when the members of Kulaksiz 5 were doing this they first discovered the above mortgages, now 3 years old. Even then the enormity did not register and it was not until at a meeting with the Bank Manager who granted the mortgages, Ertul Kader, was the fact that no payments had ever been made and that Akfinans Bank Limited were well advanced in a court hearing to gain a Repossession Order for the land and because our homes stand on that land, those too. They gained that judgement on the 20th November 2008.

The Kulaksiz 5 residents were devastated. Protracted and costly legal action taken by them ended in failure and on the 6th of June 2010, the unthinkable happened, their homes were sold at Auction to, you would never guess,  Akfinans Bank Limited! The debt now stood at 2,077,000TL plus government taxes of 350,000TL meaning that to regain their homes, they must find that money. The bank actually expect Kulaksiz 5 to pay off a debt they never incurred.

As if this action were not enough, the Bank have conducted an ongoing campaign of threats and intimidation, culminating on the 30th July 2010 when a Bank Manager, an Advocate and a Locksmith broke into one of the houses and changed the locks. On leaving the property, the second of two cars was deliberately aimed at one resident and driven at speed, causing him to need to jump out of the way to avoid serious injury or worse. The act compounded by the fact they had not sought or been granted the legal sanction of an Eviction Order.

I am sorry this is so long but how do you condense 4 plus years of such treatment. Sadly, there are at least 40,000 other European citizens in Cyprus, both north and south, in a position where exactly the same could happen to them. In the south, the EU can intervene but in the north, where Turkey supposedly protects those living there, this guardian is ignoring these injustices. We call upon you to pressurise Turkey to bring justice to bear on the cases of the Kulaksiz 5 residents.

Google “North Cyprus Free Press” and you can read blogs contributed by Pauline Read, one of the Kulaksiz 5 residents.

Yours sincerely

[Your name]

Here is the letter as a MS Word document

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