Government cracks down on Turkish Cypriot property contract violations

The government announced on Friday it had audited a total of 1,000 lease contracts for Turkish Cypriot properties being used for commercial purposes during the month of November.

The audits carried out by the interior ministry concerned properties across the Republic. They showed a total of 98 violations of the contracts’ terms, while a further 105 contracts have been flagged for further investigation.

In the cases where contract violations have been determined and proven, the Turkish Cypriot property management service has launched the relevant procedures to recover the properties.

In addition, the interior ministry said it is implementing a series of measures aimed at solving “specific cases” regarding the management of Turkish Cypriot properties.

To this end, they have already revoked a licence for the use of an agricultural plot in the Paphos district after finding that while the licence had been approved for the use of the property by an internally displaced person for agricultural purposes, the property was in fact wrongly being used for development by another person.

The licence will therefore be reissued to the person originally in possession of the licence.

The government also said they are planning to upload a list of available Turkish Cypriot property to the website of the Turkish Cypriot property management service, with the aim of more efficiently, more transparently, and more fairly allowing them to be used.