Use of one in seven Turkish Cypriot properties illegal

Violations of lease agreements were found in one in seven contracts regarding Turkish Cypriot properties in the Republic, Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said on Tuesday.

Speaking at the House refugees committee, he said the Turkish Cypriot property management service has been carrying out audits on leases signed over Turkish Cypriot properties for over a year.

He said this had been done “with the aim of clarifying the degree to which the relevant provisions were implemented by the beneficiaries”, and that 92 per cent of all audits have now been completed.

This, he said, amounts to just over 3,700 contracts, with violations of lease agreements being found in a total of 503 cases.

He added that in those cases, legal action had been initiated to recover the property related to the contracts in question.

With this in mind, he said a new amendment to the current legislation has been put forward by the government, which will provide for a new procedure for the distribution of Turkish Cypriot property in the Republic.

He said the new procedure will include an “eligibility and scoring system”, which will “evaluate applicants through clear, objective, and measurable indicators.

“In this way, the Guardian of Turkish Cypriot properties’ discretion will be limited, given that up until now, the current system has resulted in abuse and exploitation, and this will allow us to achieve equality, transparency, and meritocracy,” he said.

He added that under the new amendment, “the allocation of Turkish Cypriot property will be linked to applicants’ socio-economic situation and the composition of their families.”

At the same meeting, he said work would begin on the construction of new homes for refugees under the Ktizo plan by the end of October.

The €130 million plan, which entails knocking down apartment blocks built after 1974 and replacing them with new buildings and the government paying some of the rent in the intervene for those affected, had been unveiled in April last year, but has been plagued by various delays.

Those have been caused in part by the buildings’ inhabitants’ reluctance to leave their homes or to pay their contribution towards rent in the private sector.

Ioannou had announced in April that work on the new buildings would begin in July, but this has since not yet come to pass.