Is property in North Cyprus a safe investment? Investors are inundated with confusing, and often contradictory information on this much talked about property market, much of which is backed by political motivations and the weight of the island’s immediate history. One frequent concern for people looking to buy property in North Cyprus is that the lineage of property, which often appears disconcertingly knotted, due to the redistribution of property between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots following the partition of the island – a redistribution which saw those who had lost property after becoming refugees exchange their property for one in their respective final home.
What property investors may well have heard, especially those that have spent time in the Republic of Cyprus and have come into contact with Greek Cypriot media, is that property in North Cyprus is an unsafe and unwise destination for investment because, once reunification eventually occurs, properties that have a history of exchanged lineage between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and have been bought by foreign investors will be rendered worthless by a society looking to return all land and property deeds to their original, pre 1970’s owners, righting off the purchases and changes in ownership that may have occurred since that date with the same disdain as the division that has split the island itself.
However, the problem of land and property is, after thirty years, now well entrenched, and recent developments in the courts, alongside a burgeoning surge in development in the North of Cyprus (referred to as the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, by the Turkish government – the only country that officially recognise the independence of this tiny portion of the Mediterranean) have given assurance and security to people looking to buy and develop property in North Cyprus.
The issue of land and property in North Cyprus is often presented in terms of the Greek Cypriot population claiming land back from the North, with little or no consideration paid to the fact that the Turkish Cypriots, who became refugees as they left the south in the face of the tragic events that proceeded the Greek backed coup and subsequent military intervention by the Turkish military in 1974.
If, following the reunification of the island, the lineage of all properties and all land on this island was followed back to its pre division ownership and returned to the hands of the family that owned it thirty years ago then there would be an unsustainable upheaval in land and property ownership. Just look at the Larnaca Airport in the Republic of Cyprus, a multimillion piece of kit and infrastructure that is actually on land once owned, and abandoned, by Turkish Cypriots. Nobody in North Cyprus is suggesting that the lineage of this land threatens the property that is now sitting on it. Equally, the case of the Orams, a British couple who bought a villa which had once been owned by Greek Cypriots but which had been sold by a Turkish Cypriot, shows that the claims of the Greek Cypriots who lost land in exchange for land in the south – the Republic of Cyprus – do not, in themselves, outweigh the appeals of ownership enacted by the Turkish Cypriots. The Orams won their case – a British judge ruled that they owned the property that they had purchased, giving other property investors precedent in their purchases in the North, where property is still often around a half of the price of that in the Republic of Cyprus.
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Property investment in North Cyprus can be read about at http://www.whiterocksbafra.com, where property news and investment opportunities sit side by side.
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