Has anyone bought an apartment off-plan in Astrum Towers, Turkey?

If so have you just glibly accepted the developer's contract without considering why there is no bank guarantee?

Do any of you bright people out there have info concerning the following:

A Fidelity Certificate listed with the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury an insurance which covers any loss of funds from a client account.

Does this protect the purchaser's monies if the developer goes bankrupt? Or does it really mean that monies protected by this insurance in the client account once having left that account no longer applies?

Are monies housed in escrow with the developer's solicitor/notary in London mean monies paid are protected?

At the moment I am being pressurised by the developer's sales team, the agent and the Solicitor/notary to pay a 30% instalment though contracts have not been signed or totally agreed between both parties (i.e the developer's solicitor and myself). I have delayed paying until I have had answers to queries that I have forwarded to them. Admittedly it is taking longer than they would like. I don't want to part with monies without a contract signed I believe I would be very foolish doing this. The developer's are pressing me to go ahead with the purchase and given me notification of their intention to cancel the agreement and informed me that I forfeit my initial deposit though I had agreed with the developer/sales person that I would not go through with the contract unless I was happy with its contents and that if I was not totally satisfied I would be refunded that deposit.

I feel like these people think I am just purchasing a bag of sweets and that I should just hand over whatever they ask for without a legitimate and satisfactory contract in place.

Well, I have had a real old snipe but I need help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





There is no fool like and old fool and I feel I am being had.

Your solicitor should be answering your queries, but I infer from your posting he's acting for the developers as well.

Excuse my ignorance, but what on earth (or in heaven) has the Archbishop of Canterbury got to do with off-plan apartments in Turkey ?. (Which is awash with unsold new build properties, in common with many countries these days).

That is exactly what I asked the solicitor/notary. What on earth does the Archbishop of Canterbury have to do with this in guaranteeing deposits etc. Needless to say I got no satisfactory answer.

Yes, I totally agree another independent solicitor should be dealing with this!!! But I have discovered that most of these off-plan developments appear to insist on using their own appointed solicitors/notaries. They certainly have been doing this in Spain. It makes me rather dubious about the whole process. Also the developers want you to hurry into placing your deposit with them withoutout much prior thought.

So many people are rushed into believing that if they don't go along with the purchase straight away that they have lost a brilliant deal!!!

Any developer who insists that you use their 'tame' in-house solicitor should be avoided like the plague.

Walk away.

(Might be worth calling the A. B of Canterbury's office, for a laugh, and asking for more info - I bet they've never heard of Astrum Towers !)

Upward, I am familiar with insurance backed guarantees and what they do and don't offer. The right protection should involve escrow plus insurance backing. If you want to paste a few more details in, I'll take a look and get back to you. Chances are though that you will not be able to get hold of enough info for me to say it is "safe". Further, the rating of the insurer is key and I'll be surprised if this is a decent one. Also, the ratings at the moment are nonsense anyway.

Upward,

Why are you buying Astram Towers. It´s 30 miles outside of Istanbul and got nothing going for it other than a supermarket. What is your investment strategy?

Andy

It could be holding on long term. Possibly flipping though under the current climate people will be thinking twice about parting with their money. So probably the next option is not too clever.

The long-term prospects are that it is an area being regenerated and its proximity is to the Trade Fairs and commercial area.

However, I am beginning to think this is not such a good prospect and there are too many downsides in the way the seller has put together their contract.

They made no mention of an escrow account or the Fidelity Certificate etc in the contract.

I asked for this info from solicitor/notary and they just emailed this over without mentioning that this would be put into the contract.

I thank you for your help but on this occasion I have nothing in the contract for you to look at!!!!