Is your property held by a nominee? Some warnings.

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£eagle
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Is your property held by a nominee? Some warnings.

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Post by £eagle »

A friend of mine went to his advocate, who held my friend’s property as nominee, and asked him to transfer the property to him. The advocate refused saying that Cyprus law does not recognise nominee-ship and therefore the property belonged to the advocate.

Another young advocate friend, who says that he holds more than £50 million of ex-pats properties, reports that on any transfer of a “nominee” title (after deducting his usual generous fees) he must also deduct personal income tax, at the maximum rate, plus KDV on the WHOLE sale price. That is about 45% of the total sale price, even if you are selling at a loss. The reason, according to the advocate? The law does not recognise nominees and so the advocate is treated as the owner of the property, by the tax office. The deemed acquisition cost is nil, because the advocate has paid nothing, so that the whole sale price is taxable profit.

If there is no recognition of nomineeships, the best that can be said for the advocates is that they have been extremely negligent in their initial advice and should be liable to make good any losses. On the other hand, if nominees are recognised by law then what is happening is theft.

I wonder if there is any widespread abuse going on here.

The £eagle

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Re: Is your property held by a nominee? Some warnings.

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Post by metin »

How do things stand if you have given the estate agent 'Power Of Attorney' do you know ????

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Re: Is your property held by a nominee? Some warnings.

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Post by £eagle »

The cynics guide to doing business in the TRNC includes:

don't trust anyone, least of all your own estate agent or lawyer;
never give anyone a power of attorney unless it is absolutely unavoidable;
the power of attorney should be in your mother tongue as well as Turkish, given only for a specific purpose and time limited.

As you haven't said why you gave your estate agent a power of attorney it is not possible to say whether you have been sensible or whether you have signed your own financial death certificate.

The £eagle

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Re: Is your property held by a nominee? Some warnings.

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Post by metin »

Not me, but a friend, who had to go back to the UK, because her husband was ill. I wondered how she stood. The house is rented out by the same Estate Agent, and she does receive the rent every month. I've always been a bit worried though, because if anything happened to her, surely the property would become the agents. And she has had buyers in the past, but the agent always fobs them off, saying the money is not enough even though she has accepted their offer.

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Re: Is your property held by a nominee? Some warnings.

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Post by £eagle »

A power of attorney is a different legal animal to a nominee-ship.

A nominee is the registered owner/holder of an asset but he holds the asset on trust for the real owner who is entitled to its return at any time, without payment. As between the nominee and the real owner, the nominee has no authority to do anything with the asset.

The holder of a power of attorney is given specific authority, e.g. by the owner of an asset, to do certain things on behalf of and in the name of the owner. Any act outside the specific authority is invalid. The rights of the owner are not affected in any way and the attorney cannot veto any acts of the owner.

If your friend wants to sell his property for £X the attorney cannot stop him. Of course the agent may just have been giving advice on valuation. I recommend that your friend says who is boss.

The £eagle

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Re: Is your property held by a nominee? Some warnings.

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Post by metin »

Thanks for that. Will pass it on to her.

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