MicAtCyp wrote: about the Property committee I totally disagree with you. This is one of the main reasons the Anan Plan failed and any settlement that will not let the people take direct control of their properties will fail again. This WILL NOT create chaos! What will create chaos, and perhaps revolution is the Property committee.To tell you the truth the best it can end up with is "apou faei faei". (= a race of grabbing from the pie.)
OK, I am glad to see that we have finally touched upon the root of our disagreement over this issue, which disagreement has been evident for quite some time.
Firstly let me say that I am aware of the risk of corruption within the property board. Proper procedure and constant monitoring/scrutiny will be required if that pitfall is to be avoided, but I do believe it can be avoided. After all, the Property Board would be constantly in the light of publicity, and with proper procedure I doubt that fraud would go undetected for long.
But let's go to the essence of this issue. I will try to explain why I believe it is imperative to have a property committee, and you can explain to me why it is imperative not to have one.
Let's take a case study. We have one TC that has been given a GC house after 1974, and now (after the solution) he wishes to keep this house in exchange for the house he had in the south. We also have the GC refugee, who was the owner of this house, but who according to the hypothetical settlement is now entitled to a new house in the same town or village - or alternatively monetary compensation, if he opts not to get a new house.
Without a Property Board, how do you propose the issue should be settled? Are you suggesting that the TC current occupant should give his own property in the south directly to the GC refugee, who will then be responsible to sell it himself in the free market until he raises enough money to "build the new house in the same town or village" that he is entitled to? And what if the value of the TC's original property in the south is slightly less than the value of the GC property he wishes to exchange it for? Presumably he will have to pay the difference in cash, yes? What if he doesn't pay? Ah, at point we start hiring lawyers. (cost, cost). The TC says his property in the south is not worth any less than the property in the north. How do we ascertain the truth? Well, we hire a quantity surveyor, who will also be charging 100 pounds per hour (or whatever it is they charge, probably because of extremely high demand for his services he will be charging closer to 300 pounds per hour). So, once the truth of the matter has been ascertained, the trial can go ahead, and a few years (and a few hunder thousands pounds in legal costs) later the GC will be able to get the cash he deserves + a TC property in some village of Paphos or Limassol that to him is personally useless. Of course, he will also be getting an entitlement to build a house in an empty plot that has been allocated to him (I am not sure by who, since there won't be a property board) in his original town in the north. All he has to do now is sell the TC property in the village of Limassol, in order to raise the cash to build his home. Of course, thousands upon thousands of GCs will be trying to sell their ex-TC property simultaneously, which will be great news for the property developers who wish to purchase such real estate for their agro-tourism projects but very bad news for the average refugee who will be seeing property prices plummet to the bottom.
But let's say that after all these ordeals, the GC raises enough funds to build his home. Who will he have to turn to then? The construction companies. Of course, thousands of GCs will be asking for the services of these companies simultaneously, and there are only a limited number of construction companies, so guess what will happen to construction costs.
All this, I like to call by the convenient name of "chaos".
A Property Board, in contrast, would absorb all these fluctuations with relative ease. If a current occupant refuses to pay what he owes, the legal service of the Board and the quantity surveyors of the Board will deal with the issue at a much lower cost, since they will be full time employees of the Board rather than professionals who charge by the hour. The GC owner will not have to wait for the dispute to be resolved before he can receive his compensation, which will be dealt as a totally separate matter to the debt which the TC occupant has with the Board. The GC also will not have to take as compensation some useless-to-him property in paphos or limassol, but rather the board will take in this property and then allow sales in a controlled fashion, with a view to maintaining the macro-economic stability of the country. As for the new home for the GC refugee, the Property Board will put out an invitation for tenders, which tender various pan-European construction companies will take up, and the Property Board can accept the offer of the lowest bidder. One buyer, many sellers, low actual costs due to economies of scale: Construction costs for a house cannot get any lower. All that the GC refugee needs to know, is that within two or three years of the settlement he will be receiving a new home in the town or village of his ancestry. End of story.
Sure, the Property Board will make a loss at the end of the day, and someone will have to foot the bill. In the Annan Plan, the UCR was supposed to foot the bill. I propose that international donors, or perhaps Turkey and Greece, should undertake to "balance the books" when the Property Board is wrapped up 15 or 20 years down the road.
I await to hear your thoughts ...
