AkFinans Bank v Pauline Read | TRNC Resolution Committee Report

This email was received by me from Pauline Read and for legal reasons was published without changes

The Resolution Committee of the TRNC was a commitee I had never heard of. I was made aware of its existence by someone who is a member of this committee and he encouraged me to submit a report for their consideration. I was made aware that any decision rendered by this committe was not a legal decision but could be used in evidence in a court case.

Apparently the Estate Agents Law also brought this Committee into being. I did visit an Advocate to have copies sent directly to each memeber of this Committee, but she had never heard of it and in the end could not/would not help me. I went to the expense of having the report I prepared translated in Turkish and did submit it to my contact who suggested it initially. I was told that a certain senior member of the bank family was very angry about it, but since he was not on the committee I have to ask, how did he know about it?

I submitted this report at the end of September 2011. I was also informed, in line with all Government departments, I should receive a response within a month. I am still waiting. I have not wasted this report since I used it as a ‘hand out’ at the Press Conference kindly arranged by the Teacher’s Union. As you will see from it’s content, it is my story and nowhere do I claim to represent anyone but myself.

Indeed that is exactly what I told Press at the Press Conference.

“To the  Resolution  Committee of the TRNC
My name is Pauline Ann Read – I am British
I call upon the Resolution  Committee  to read all my evidence and then  decide if they consider I have been unjustly treated.

Site :   KULAKSIZ  5 KARSIYAKA
Builder:  KULAKSIZ CONSTRUCTION LIMITED
Director:   Abdurrahman  Guney
Landowner:  Yuksel  Yilmaz
Bank:   Akfinans  Bank  Limited

1.  On the 14^th September 2005 I signed a Contract of Sale to purchase a villa on a site in Karsiyaka known as Kulaksiz  5.  My co signatories were Abdurrahman Guney for himself and as Director of Kulaksiz  Construction  Limited  and the then landowner Yuksel  Yilmaz.
2. On the  4^th October 2005 Stamp Duty was paid on my Contract thus making it a legal and binding document.
3. Permission to Purchase was applied for on the  20^th September 2005 ref no. 2005 1242.
4. The delivery was five months late on 6^th May 2006 and that is the day we moved in.
5. The swimming pool had to be redone 5 (five) times due to water loss.
6. The back end of the villa subsided and had to be rebuilt twice, 2 bedrooms  and the main bathroom, in November 2006 and March/April 2008.
7. On the  6^th March 2008 whilst Registering my Contract under the new Estate Agency act I was made aware of the mortgages on the land my villa was built on.  This was the first knowledge I had of the mortgages which had apparently been there since March 2005 = £1600 and November 2005 = 100,000 YTL.  This despite my Contract saying there were no impediments and that they would keep it free of impediments.
8. I made my Advocate,  aware of this immediately and we started trying to negotiate with the builder to try to have the mortgages removed.
9. On the 11^th June 2008 I was granted my Permission to Purchase ref. 5 (K2) 1310/2008 so my Advocate, as per the Contract invited the Builder to meet us in the Tapu Office to transfer title. The builder was not  able to comply with this request.
10. In March 2008 I had received a phone  call from someone saying he was a friend of the landowner Yuksel Yilmaz and he very firmly told me not to tell any potential purchaser of the one unsold house belonging to the landowner that there was a mortgage on the land.  I said I could not do that, I asked if he was a good Muslim, he said he was, I said then you would not lie to me would you, he said he would not.  I then told him I was a good Christian and I was not prepared to lie to potential purchasers.   He would not tell me his name.
11. At the instigation of the Director of Kulaksiz Construction Limited I was invited to a meeting at the  Girne Branch of  Akfinans Bank Limited, the Bank who had given the mortgage to my co signatories on the Contract.  This took place on the 9^th July 2008  As soon as I walked into the Office of Ertu Kader part owner and Manager of Girne Branch of Akfinans Bank Limited, he greeted me with the words, ‘You are the  religious lady, we have spoken on the phone’.  This gave me the answer to the identity of the caller who wanted me not to tell potential purchasers about the mortgages on the land.  I was amazed it was him.  I was also amazed to find him claiming that the landowner Yuksel  Yilmaz was his ‘best’ friend.   I have put a copy of a summary of this meeting with these notes.  The  most frightening thing we learned was that the Bank had already taken Repossession Proceedings and according to Ertu Kader it was too late for us to join in the case, as after the summer recess the Judge would be  giving his verdict.
12. I  reported all this back to my Advocate and we decided to start the necessary legal paperwork to have ready to submit after the summer recess to the Court in Girne 
13. We lodged a case for Breach of Contract  citing  7 breaches, the worst of which was of course the mortgage .  The case was lodged with the court on the 17^th September 2008 and the first Hearing was  on  the  19^th September 2008.  During the case we had Inunctions put on villas and land still in the name of  Kulaksiz  Construction Limited, which were at first temporary, then made permanent and eventually I won my case on the 6^th November 2009 and the Injunctions became  memorandums.   I am still waiting for the Tapu to arrange the auction to sell these and the court has ordered them to do so.   I truly believe this will NEVER happen.
14. During the time my Breach of Contract case was being heard.  I also took out two further cases against Akfinans Bank Limited, the builder and the landowner.  The first accusing the Bank of undue diligence in granting the mortgages.  This case  had several hearing at Girne   District Court, after one hearing the Judge called my Advocate to his  chambers and apparently informed her that it was too big’ a case for the District court and would need to go to the High Court.  My Advocate had an informal chat (I was not present) with a High Court Judge and was told it was a case that had no chance of winning.   She advised we withdraw it, which is what we did.  Just four days before the 6 months allowed to challenge the Repossession Court Order Judge Mehmet had given , we entered a case into the High Court in Lefkosa to Appeal  this ruling.  This case was lodged  on the 18^th May 2009.    After many trips to Lefkosa   when  my  Advocate saw a Judge in Chambers and we waited outside, when a summons was served on the Landowner Yuksel  Yilmaz at Hatay  Airport in Turkey, the case was ready to be heard.  On the 18^th January 2010 we attended Lefkosa  High Court prepared for the Hearing.  A Judge called my Advocate into chambers and told he had been persuaded by Akan Kursat  Advocate for Akfnans Bank Limited that as I had won the Breach of Contract, I did not need two remedies for the same problem.   I am disappointed that my Advocate did not argue that although I had won the case I had not received the money therefore I  had   NO remedy.  As I write this,  almost two years on,  I still have no remedy  and now I no longer have the villa either as it was forcibly,  violently and criminally repossessed by Akfinans  Bank Limited  on the 30^th July 2010, who in the commission of this crime also deliberately drove a vehicle at my partner causing him to have to jump out of the way to avoid injury or worse.  The police although called  did not attend immediately and only came when called by a member of the media.  The following day we were threatened with arrest if we so much as put a foot into the driveway of our own villa.  I was told that the court had thrown the case out.    I am attaching copies of e mails between my Advocate and myself which proves conclusively that this was not the case.
15. On the 6^th June 2010 despite legal attempts to stop it the auction of our villas at Kulaksiz  5 took place and the Bank bought them.   They are claiming they paid over 2,000,000 TL for them.  As both the seller and the purchaser the 2,000,000 plus cheque was paid by the bank to the Tapu who in return,  gave the Bank a cheque for that amount less any disbursements.  The Bank acquired a site with 13 villas which they allege they did not know of at the time of the mortgage.  They charged a usury rate of 250% later allegedly reduced by the Judge to 80% per quarter compound which really is no different.   An initial mortgage of 100,000 TL grew to 2,077,000 TL in less than five years.  In effect the Bank acquired a site worth somewhere in the order of   £1,000,000 for a capital outlay of under £40,000.
16. During the months that followed I have been the victim of a concerted intimidation and hate campaign.   In August 2010 Akan Kursat sent an article  by  fax  to Kibris Gazetesi  in which he claimed I was a delusional woman who having received the award of £120,000 for my Breach of Contract  also wanted the villa too.   KIbris Gazetesi  did print my retraction of this. It is made even more hateful by the fact that I had been to a meeting with Akan Kursat  on the 23^rd July  2010 when he demanded that  each owner of Kulaksiz 5 pay £55,000 to the bank for their homes  which, if they could not afford it, Akfinans Bank would give them a mortgage for up to 20 years.  This would mean that the oldest member of Kulaksiz 5 would be 108 years old before he paid it off.   A mortgage on a home we had already paid for to satisfy a mortgage we had had no knowledge of and never consented to.     At  that meeting I told Mr Kursat  that I had not received my award he even asked me if I wanted to buy my own villa!   Some two weeks after I had told him I had NOT received my award he publicly announced in Kibris Gazetesi  that I had.  One week after I told  Mr . Kursat I did not want to buy my own house and had not received the award  the Bank broke in and took it in the manner described in note 14.
17. A friend made me aware of an article in Havidis newspaper where I was being accused of being  a  propagandist for the south and that I owned two villas with pools in the south.   I was able to reply to this again and refute it  but again I see it as part of the ongoing hate campaign against me.
18. I am member of the ogoing cases  involving all of the Kulaksiz 5 here in the TRNC and also through the ECHR in Strasbourg.
19. NB . Please note that the Kulaksiz  5 site is still on Builders Tariff electricity due to the builder failing to complete the Electrical Project.
20. The Kader family, owners of Akfinans  Bank  Limited have spent a great deal of money on my villa, have cited CCTV  cameras on it and now use it as their weekend retreat every weekend.  At their instigation on the  17^th April 2011 had me pseudo  arrested for allegedly taking photos of my villa, I was detained at Lapta  police station for 3 hours simply on their say so.

I ask the Resolution  Committee to look at my evidence and to give your  opinion as to whether what is happening to me here in the TRNC is right, just or proper.    I consider my Human Rights are being  violated  in a very serious and inhumane manner and I hope you will all agree with me.