AIPP Awaits Policy on Northern Cyprus

As a bit of an addendum to the previous piece on Northern Cyprus, it is interesting to see that the AIPP are formulating a strategy on how they should handle queries relating to the region. The association has sought opinion from a senior barrister in London regarding how it should position its stance on this very sensitive issue. The associations says: "The AIPP is aiming to formulate a policy on the region, which best serves the interests of all potential purchasers and the industry and is in line with the organisation’s remit to ensure its members work honestly, legally and professionally."

Now one question has to rear its head. If the AIPP, a professional body which is involved daily in the legal aspects of property sale across the globe, is unable to formulate a policy on the situation in Northern Cyprus, how can anyone in their right mind justify purchasing a property there under any circumstances. Yet they are. UK citizens are particularly attracted to the area (as they are to the neighbouring south of the island in fairness), but just because property is cheap does not make it a bargain.

If you don't know much about this issue and are considering purchasing property in Northern Cyprus then you should brush up your knowledge of the very famous Oram's case, in which a British couple were ordered by an EU court to return the property on which their villa was built to its owner prior to the Turkish invasion of 1974.

For a brief overview of the Oram's case take a look at this piece from the Telegraph. The piece is from 2006 and the Oram's are still fighting to have the ruling overturned.

The aim of this snippet is not to argue the pros and cons of what is going on in Northern Cyprus, these are matters for a court of law, it is merely to tell people considering investing in Northern Cyprus how much unwanted hassle they could well be bringing on themselves by considering the TRNC as a property destination until the issue of land title has been fully resolved there.

The AIPP decision on its stance on the TRNC is available at www.Aipp.org.uk.

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Ryanair Website

As I tend to use online flight reservation websites quite a bit all the hoopla about Ryanair's new website was of some interest. I did try it out on Monday and it was pathetically slow, so much so that I left it in frustration a half an hour after I'd tried to book a flight to Fuerteventura without a single page loading.

I tried it out again today (Thursday) and it seems to have ironed out a lot of its bugs (as its bombastic leader Mr. O'Leary claimed it would with some ferocity on the radio), but I still have a gripe (sure I wouldn't be Irish if I didn't). The cost to fly two adults and a child return from Shannon to Fuerteventura, admittedly in July/August, comes out at the princely sum of €1,378.41. From the home of the 'low cost flight' I'd have expected a little better. The equivalent Dublin to Lanzarote flight for the same period with Aer Lingus came out over a hundred Euro cheaper, and I considered that to be extravagantly expensive. Let's be honest, you can get an entire package holiday for less than that.

Don't get me wrong, I have significant admiration for Mr. O'Leary and his airline and what they have done for travel in our island nation, as well as the rest of Europe. But they can be full of it sometimes and charges of this magnitude give lie to the fact that they are a low fares airline at all.

If you want to be flown to 100 km outside some Godforsaken destination that no-one else would touch with a bargepole on a Tuesday morning in November at 7am then you will most certainly get a low fare but if you wish to fly to a popular destination during a peak period just forget about it. In this instance Ryanair will be, if anything, more expensive than any other option you can find.

It is good to see that the consumer watchdog is hauling them over the coals over their alleged '1 cent' flights offer which are, apparently, nearly impossible to obtain. Although Ryanair have opened up many destinations to both Irish and UK travellers, it can act like a spoiled child on occasion and most institutions are afraid to stand up to O'Leary. It is a shame because the company could easily execute its exceptional business model without stepping over the line and aggravating everyone in the process. It would make life so much easier for everyone involved.

If you want a bit of a laugh you might get your hands on a copy of Paul Kilduff's new book, "How To Be Treated Like Shite In 15 Different Countries... And Still Quite Like It". It is based on his experiences with the airline he refers to as "Ruinair" (book pictured above). You can get it on his site, http://www.PaulKilduff.com/. Apparently it costs just 1 cent, not bad value.

Of course you need to add costs and taxes of €12.98 which bring your total outlay to €12.99 - boom, boom.

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Bulgarian Dreams Expelled from AIPP

It will come as a bit of a shock to those who have had dealings with Bulgarian Dreams that they have been officially expelled from AIPP (the UK based Association of International Property Professionals).

There is no specific reason given for the expulsion except that the "Tribunal finds that the conduct of Bulgarian Dreams in this regard fell way short of the ambits that should be expected."



This decision by the AIPP would have to call into question the value of the company's two Bentley awards, awarded in 2005 and 2006. These awards are renowned within the industry for being given to International Homes Magazine's largest advertisers to thank them for their custom over the year, but that's a rant for another blog thread.



News on the grapevine suggest that the company's owner, Robert Jenkin, has gone to ground and is completely uncontactable. Someone within the industry in Bulgaria cited the company as a perfect example of "an agent who became a developer without sufficient knowledge and is now suffering the consequences."



All reference to AIPP seems to have been removed from the company's site but it still claims to be a member of the EEAU (European Estate Agent's Union). The link to this entity's site (http://www.eeau.eu) currently only leads to an error page.



If you have had dealings with Bulgarian Dreams we strongly recommend that you get in contact with the company to query your current status or contact AIPP to examine your options at this stage.



Further info on the company's expulsion from AIPP can be found at http://www.aipp.org.uk/

http://www.OverseasCafe.com/

Cleveland - Subprime Ghost Town

For those who can get their hands on it there is a very good piece on the fallout of the subprime crisis in the US on page 8 of the business section of the Sunday Times (Feb 24th). It goes into some detail on the human cost this major financial scandal is having on the average ex-homeowner in Cleveland, Ohio, the centre of the greatest fallout from the subprime crisis. I can't find it online but I'm sure it is there somewhere.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has filed a lawsuit against 21 major investment banks that he said have enabled the subprime lending and foreclosure crisis in his town. The lawsuit uses Ohio's public nuisance law as a vehicle for seeking damages. The law allows recovery for circumstances created by a defendant that interfere with the public's rights and interests.

The firms are accused of creating a public nuisance by making mortgages available to people who had "no realistic means of keeping up with their loan payments." A dozen of the banks also collectively filed thousands of foreclosures in Cuyahoga County over the last four years.

Jackson has said; "Subprime mortgages have proved as bad as drugs in the destruction they have wrought on the community."

The one-of-a-kind suit includes institutions such as Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, HSBC Holdings, Lehman Brothers and Wells Fargo.

Of course the chances that such an action will make the banks mend their ways is highly unlikely, but it is good to see someone prepared to make a stand to show that there is a human cost to the 'creative financial packages' that are invented to constantly increase voracious banks' desire for ever growing profits.

http://www.overseascafe.com/

Northern Cyprus Mortgages

I'm not sure how many of you will have spotted that Global Mortgages Direct (GMD) in Kilkenny announced a few weeks ago that they would be launching mortgages for those looking to buy property in Northern Cyprus.

Now quite apart from the obvious problem with title deeds here (if you don't know much about this you should probably research it a bit, there is some stuff on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cyprus which will put you in the frame). Basically the Turkish still have a hold on the northern part of Cyprus since an invasion in 1974, in order to stop the Greeks from taking over the island. In 1984, however, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) declared independence, but is only recognised by Turkey. Hence if you wish to fly to the capital, Kyrenia, you have to go through Turkey, flights from any other country in the world don't exist. I had a slightly odd experience last year when flying from London to Ismir.

The plane landed and virtually nobody got off, so I wasn't sure if we were in Ismir or not, as no other destination appeared on the boards in London. I had to enquire from the stewardess who informed me that the flight was continuing to Kyrenia but, as TRNC isn't recognised outside of Turkey they couldn't advertise the fact in London.

In any case, this didn't strike me as the safest place in the world in which to be looking to acquire a mortgage. There are huge problems with the many forms of title deed in TRNC bar one, that issued prior to 1973 by the Cypriot government. Of course most developers will claim that they have this type of title deed just to get you to buy, but most of them are not the real thing. There will eventually be a huge fallout in property ownership in this region, particularly if Turkey is ever to join the EU, as it will be a stipulation that they give the north back to the Republic of Cyprus. It is, as they say, an accident waiting to happen.

Therefore the launch of GMD's mortgages was somewhat of a surprise, but then so was the announcement in the Sunday Tribune yesterday that they'd withdrawn them, less than three weeks after they'd been launched. Apparently the Irish government, obviously under some pressure from the Cypriot ambassador (who is renowned for being very vocal on this topic and most likely outlined the danger Irish buyers could be drawing on themselves) complained to the company and asked them to withdraw the product, so they did.

Who says the government doesn't work (at least sometimes).

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How Impatient Have We Become?

There was a time, not that long ago, when the Irish were prepared to travel abroad using whatever means necessary to get to their desired destination. Flying via anywhere was no problem. This appears to no longer be the case.

During the recent SBPost Property Expo I was enquiring from a number of exhibitors why they had ceased to sell property in particular areas. I was surprised by the uniformity of the answers - because there are no direct flights.

It would appear that we have now become accustomed to being able to fly directly to the destinations we seek, and are not prepared to settle for those that we cannot reach directly.

Gone are the days when we would settle for a brief layover in Heathrow, Gatwick, Stanstead or numerous 'hub' airports around Europe. Now it is direct or nothing.

This may not seem so preposterous but ten short years ago, when the Irish were bursting on to the overseas property scene with some aplomb, it was not unusual for those flying to Alicante or Malaga to have to fly through the UK, Madrid or Barcelona. Perish the thought today. Ryanair have ensured that, not alone do we now wish to fly directly to the area we want to visit (ok, Ryanair's interpretation of 'direct' and 'destination' can be somewhat laughable on occasion but that's a story for another thread) but they have also ensured that we wish to arrive in that destination without having had to take out a new mortgage to do so.

These are, no doubt, some of the quirks of the new 'Celtic Cubs'.

http://www.OverseasCafe.com

Global Credit Crisis Over? I Think Not

So the global credit crisis was a bit of a blip then and everything is starting to come back to normality again? This would certainly be the feeling you would get if you were to speak to the world in general about this somewhat 'unhelpful' and 'awkward' period in our economic history. The worst that happened was that Nortnern Rock was nationalised and everything is hunky dory now. Those of us who watched Channel 4's Dispatches programme 'How the Banks Bet Your Money' might be left with a somewhat different opinion.

This was a real eye opener into how deeply the credit crunch is being felt in the US. To see in stark reality how many houses are being repossessed right across this vast country puts into perspective the absolute human devestation being created by the short term greed of our financial institutions.

The problem is, this is not going away anytime soon. The losses which have been clocked up by the financial institutions will be calamitous and unsustainable for some of them, so you'd better be wary if you're snapping up bank shares because they look very cheap right now. The worst is, apparently, yet to come and some of those banks may well not be in existence in a few years time.

The dispatches programme is highly recommended viewing if you want to get something of a handle on this global problem that will be with us for some time yet. You can find a summary of its contents at http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/dispatches/how+the+banks+bet+your+money/1563152

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