Cyprus Property Forum for Buyers, Sellers & Investors

Hi Nigel

Thanks for this forum and the great advice you give.…..Hope you can advise us on what looks like being a complicated situation,

Ok now I guess my first question is:

we have title deeds for land in Larnaca.
They are in Turkish only and date back to the 1940/50’s…..We have a Cyprus Solicitors firm applying for probate. The lands belonged to our father, our parents passed away some ten years ago.

The deeds have plot numbers and various other numbers on them too, they are hand written, and have quaint descriptions of the land such as number of olive trees, neighbours, yol (roadside).

Have you come across this type of Turkish deed before, and do you think that because they are in Turkish only we will have problems claiming the lands?

Hello Elis and welcome to the forum,

I have not come across this situation before, but I suspect that these Deeds (or a later version) would be held by the District Lands Office in Larnaca.

Providing that the deeds have the plot reference numbers, I'm sure your solicitor will be abl eto obtain them.

Regards,

I am guessing that if you have Turkish title deeds then you are turkish??

Deeds from that for back would have been written in English/Greek/Turkish. I am surprised if written only in Turkish, since the British developed the land registration system when they took over in 1878. If they were prior to 1946, you may also be bound by some ottoman laws as well.

The critical number is the register number usually in the top right hand corner. This is the number recorded in the land register against the name of the official owner.

You will have some trouble in so much that you have to get them out of the guardianship of the RoC and this is a time consuming procedure, if your father is a Turkish Cypriot. May also depend if he was in Cyprus before the '74 invasion.

You can claim your land back, but it won't be straight forward. You may also be asked to pay any taxes on that land depending on its size and any other otstanding charges.

Good luck.

Many thanks for the advice Nigel and Pantheman.


The deeds date from 1949-52. (British Rule). My parents left Cyprus for UK in the fifties.

I too am suprised that the deeds are only in Turkish. They all have numbers in the top right corner and other numbers too, most of which i cant understand.

From what i remember my father telling us, we think we have been able to locate the plot in Larnaca Town on Google Earth.......its an empty plot in a built up area, there has been nothing built on it.

I read somewhere that if we wish to reclaim the land we will have to stay in Cyprus for six months or so. Do you know if that is the case?

No problem with Taxes.......hey whats new?

As your father was outside of Cyprus at the time of the invasion, you do not have to do the six months. This rule was to give time to the Land registry to do its checks to ensure that the TCs were not 'double dipping' I believe. By this I mean giving up their lands to the 'trnc' for exchange land, and then comig over and claiming back what they supposedly had left.

You should appoint a lawyer who has some experience in this field. Since knowing the right people can make life alot easier.

How big is this land? Is it in the Mckenzy area? Just curious.

Well its one donum, near Faneromenis, Pantheman. We have appointed a Cypriot solicitors firm for the probate....

To be honest we have waited more than twenty years for some kind of resolution on Cyprus, but now i really cant see peace happening yet...shame. So basically well be looking to sell in the south and buy legal tc land in the north and retire.


the mad thing is that here in london, greek and turkish cypriots live together like brothers and sisters.

Elis,

I think you may have been waiting 37 years for a solution, but I don't expect one anytime soon. Turkeys interests go way beyond the TCs welfare, she has other ideas. But, I think the end of the year will see some major movement, either it gets sorted of not, but we won't be speaking for ever.

Now rgarding the 1 donum. If you have other siblings then it will get shared between you and so will the share of your mothers bit.

If you can get the land back into your names, why not build there? If you are a TC you can easily live in the south side with no issues. But I guess thats going off thread.

Eitherway good luck.