Turkish Cypriot owner of land used by EAC wants it back

The family remained in Republic for years after 1974 and still pays taxes

 

By Evie Andreou

The Turkish Cypriot owner of a plot of land in Dhali where the electricity authority (EAC) built a substation some two decades ago without her permission said she wants her property restored after red tape has caused long delays to her receiving the agreed compensation.

She has the support of the ombudswoman Maria Stylianou Lottides who in a report earlier this year called on both the EAC and the interior ministry to cooperate and find a solution to the benefit of the property owner.

“It’s been a very long time, something needs to be done,” owner of the property Shengul Tekman, told the Sunday Mail, from the UK. “But if it cannot be done, just remove the substation and pay me compensation for using my land since 1999.”

The interior ministry, as the Guardian of Turkish Cypriot properties, oversees properties left behind by Turkish Cypriots after 1974, and it is not uncommon for permission to be granted to state services or semi-governmental organisations such as the EAC to use the land for public projects.

However, Tekman’s case is very different. Her family remained in their village, Dhali, around 17 kilometres southeast of Nicosia and kept paying taxes to the local authority, so it does not fall under the category of properties that would normally be handled by the Guardian.

Tekman said they had left temporarily in 1974 with the rest of the Dhali residents when it appeared that the Turkish army might take the village and ended up in Analyondas, but the family later went back to their village. Tekman left for the UK in 1977, but her parents remained in Dhali until 1990 when her father died, and her mother moved to the UK.

“But she was going to Dhali on a regular basis to see friends and to pay the taxes for our land and houses which we still continue to pay,” she said.

The plot in question, in the Shinya area, towards Potamia, was given to her and her sister by their father. Her sister now lives in Canada.

In 1999, however, the EAC constructed a substation on part of the plot without asking permission from the family.

According to Tekman, the Dhali local authority knew their plot was not abandoned since they were paying taxes for it but did not inform them of the EAC’s intentions.

She said they had appointed two solicitors “but the case was not resolved”.

According to a 2002 court decision, the EAC, when it had expressed interest in 1998 in erecting the substation on that plot, had asked for its appropriation through the commerce ministry. After the Guardian, which unbeknownst to the EAC was not in charge of the plot, failed to respond within the deadline, since the case did not concern them, the utility asked the ministry to issue an appropriation decree. After receiving building permission, the EAC constructed the substation in 1999. The court, however, ruled that the EAC had not followed the indicated procedures and annulled the appropriation decree, but no moves were made for the substation’s removal.

In 2017, Tekman contacted the EAC, and they had a meeting in April 2018 which ended in an agreement to sell the part the substation was on, for around €30,000 but the money never reached her because the land and surveys department did not sign the transfer deed.

She said the EAC had told her they had contacted the lands and surveys department several times asking if anything else was needed for the agreement but had no reply.

The delay, according to EAC official Tassos Gregoriou, manager Distribution System Operator (DSO), was due to the other procedures initiated by the interior ministry that were deemed necessary before the title deed transfer.

“Since 2018 when we reached an agreement, they told us some checks needed to be done. They have yet to be completed,” Gregoriou told the Sunday Mail.

According to Tekman, the interior ministry wanted to first check whether she and any of her family members possessed any property in the north that belonged to Greek Cypriots.

“We submitted everything they asked,” Tekman said.

Despite several requests by the Sunday Mail for information on the case from the interior ministry in recent weeks, no response had been received by the time the article went to print.

Tekman said she was forced to take the case to ombudswoman after “a lot of elaborate correspondence” with the EAC, the director of land and surveys department and the Guardian.

Lottides issued a report in January calling on the services to “cooperate directly and effectively, in order to find a solution for the benefit of the complainant, taking seriously into account her own wishes in relation to her property, which has been used without any compensation since 1999.”

Tekman said her own wishes now were: “to remove the substation from my land, restore my land to its original state with the trees that were taken out and the EAC pays for using my land since 1999.”

Gregoriou said the substation was initially placed there because the location was ideal for providing power to the area.

He said since the purchase is not possible due to the delays, the EAC has found another plot in the area to build a new substation and will then demolish the one on Tekman’s plot.

Gregoriou said the utility would reach a new agreement with Tekman on her compensation.