Once upon a time we were very happy, obliviously unaware that our builders “A1” formerly of Fethiye had left a mortgage on our Tapu.
When we purchased our lovely villa in 2003 we bought off plan and contracted to pay by three instalments. After we had made the second payment the Tapu was transferred into our names. A day later the builder put a mortgage on the Tapu equal to the final payment still outstanding (the original date on our Tapu was altered by a day by someone, in black ink, so the date the Tapu was transferred into our names appeared to be the same as the date the mortgage was placed on our Tapu).
At the time of purchasing our villa we made the fatal mistake of not employing a decent lawyer to handle our purchase, however, having had many problems with “A1” we found ourselves an honest Lawyer who agreed to act on our behalf. We eventually came to an agreement with the builder and via our Lawyer made the final payment to him on condition he signed a legal document stating that he had received all the money due to him and that he no longer had a financial interest in our villa and would remove the mortgage with immediate effect.
4 years later when our Tapu was checked it came to light that the mortgage had never been removed and so began 2 ½ years of hell to get it removed. The Lawyer who acted on our behalf previously agreed to act for us again and contacted the builder who flatly refused to remove the debt. In fact he transferred the rights of the mortgage to a third party who set the debt collection process in motion enabling him to have our villa auctioned to recover the non existent debt. Fortunately our Lawyer got an injunction to stop the process until the matter had been settled in Court. First we went to the Fethiye Court which after 15 months found in our favour. The builder and the third party then took us to High Court on appeal but we won there as well and the decision in our favour was upheld.
Nearly three years on (having dealt with the stress of the Court cases, me being diagnosed with breast cancer and my husband being made redundant) the mortgage has been removed. Happy joy!!!!!
I just wanted to share our good news and to say sometimes there is a silver lining and PLEASE learn from our mistake and employ a DECENT, HONEST lawyer and a GOOD agent who have been recommended by someone you trust and have a proven track record (and who are not in cahoots with your builder!) cos it will save so much heartache in the long run.
