Thanks to Mustafa & Sevinc At Harmony Homes

Back in April this year we made another trip back to Bodrum and Gumusuluk the little fishing village where we had bought our villa from Harmony Homes. We knew it was time to pay the final balance and to sort things out with Mustafa at Harmony Homes.

Before we travelled, we had been in touch with Servinc who works for Harmony, she has always been a gem, it was a pleasure dealing with her as she was in touch with us constantly before our trip, she even offered to arrange accommodation for us whilst the work was being carried out on our villa, and the apartments they gave us where lovely she had everything down to the little details organized, which i have to say was really good of her.

When we arrived in Bodrum the first thing we did was to visit Harmony Offices in Bitez to meet with Mustafa and arrange to pay the balance on our villa. On our meeting we were able to clear the air about the misunderstanding we had had in the past, and he explained that the reasons why he wasn't able to get in touch, but now Servinc was going to look after us with regards to work that needs to be completed etc. And true to his word, everything that he promised he delivered, I have to say the service was excellent and can't praise him enough and would recommend Harmony Homes to anyone who is considering investing in property, there are not many companies you can trust but i have no hesitation in recommending Harmony Homes, because they addressed the issue and sorted it out for us, even now we are constantly in touch with Servinc as we still have some work that needs to be completed in the property and she has been a star in responding to us and keeping us informed of the progress.

Still waiting to hear from Turkish developer

It's been over 4 weeks since I last spoke with Mustafa from Harmony Homes, no replies to email no more phone calls..Why? Because he has got the majority of the money from us.

Since my findings about Harmony Homes from the Turkish Living Forum, I have been thinking about calling Mustafa and asking what is really going on? Perhaps even pay him a surprise visit, since he will be least expecting this. But first I'm going to try and contact him by phone....hear what he has to say and see if the reasons are justifiable.

As its late in Turkey now...I think I might give him a call tomorrow morning....and will update my findings on this blog.

Turkish Estage Agents & Developers........never trust them!!!

I have been using the Turkish Living Forums before we even set off to Turkey, to speak with other people who have bought or are in a similar position to us.

Have just signed in today and found out that the company Harmony Homes in Bodrum are in financial trouble, hence the reason why we haven't heard since we paid them. I can't believe they can lie through their teeth to rinse out every penny from you.

The fact of the matter remains that we have paid the developer over 90% of the monies and are only holding back a mere £8,000 which we have said we will pay when we get the Tapu or the Habitation Certificate.

Apparently Harmony homes have been selling homes with a 50% reduction, and the complex we have bought in Gumusuluk, has been going on for a over a year. Which is why the facilities in the complex are un touched. They are in debt and big time too, no wonder Mustafa the sales manager from Harmony hasn't replied to me.

As for the Tapu, it doesn't look like anyone will get one until the debt, which can be secured against this complex is cleared off. Unless we go there and investigate further, perhaps even appoint a solicitor we are not going to know.

As for the Estate agent, they got a hefty pay out on our purchase so they don't care and haven't even been in touch. It should be there job to advise and offer help to us, we thought because we were dealing with an English speaking person at Euroland that she may have the same values as us British people, but like i have heard many a times that the British out in Turkey seem to get acustomed to working the Turkish way and not feel bad about conning money out of you.

If anyone is thinking of buying out in Turkey....there's one piece of advice that I can give you and that is ....TRUST NO ONE...

It's not always easy to know who you are dealing with...like for example we pre- arranged our appointments for viewing properties before we went out...gathered all the information that we needed... but still fell into the trap of signing blindly when we should have appointed a lawyer.

Since our return it's been a bit hetic to say the least....so haven't been updating my blog as much as I would have liked to...but I have been doing my research on the Internet about the company we bought from... I know what your thinking...isn't it a bit too late to do this now? Surely we should have checked them out first before even thinking about signing on the dotted line..



Well the thing is the deal was done on the last day...yes the day before we flew back to UK...we saw the villa we liked...agreed on the price...went to the company's office Harmony Homes in Bodrum.. which by the way the offices were awesome..proper contemporary ...quality furniture the works.. ... plus as we were introduced to him by Caroline from Euroland who we had met back in October..who we felt we could trust... we just went for it...because we all loved the villa it was exactly what we were looking for and the location was excellent.. Gumusuluk a little fishing village on the Peninsula..

Mustafa from Harmony Homes...sales manager was who we dealt with...he took us into there fully equiped baord room...got everyone drinks and we started our negotiating with him for the villa...

We were there for about 5 hours discussing the sale...from the finishing to the Tapu..Habitation Certificate to the payment terms..

Paid them the initial £2,000 deposit for reserving the villa and agreed to send the rest of the money as soon as we got back home..but there was one thing the dreaded Habitation Certificate..
Harmony Homes Bodrum are the owners of all the villas on the complex (total of 9) so it wasn't a very large complex and they have applied for the individual habitation certificates but not had them back.. also the cost involved in doing the necessary checks and transferring the title deeds to my brothers name (Tapu) was going to be covered by Harmony Homes..so as far as we are concerned the deal was good.

We signed the contract and left after several hours feeling proud to be the owners of our new villa, and we agreed to visit it one final time before we flew back to the UK the next day.

As you can imagine we were really pleased with the deal, we didn't have to pay any commission to Caroline from Euroland (unlike the norm in Turkey where the buyer pays 3% commission) and all the military checks, costs for obtaining the Tapu were going to be covered by Harmony Homes, the only cost to us was the purchase price of the villa which was £45,000!

The highs and lows of buying Property in Turkey

At first I was feeling apprehensive; will we find our dream house? Are we doing the right thing, travelling at this time of the year? And if we do find a place, how are we going to ensure we don’t get ripped off? All these questions and more were running through my head as I made my journey down to Gatwick Airport.

Although I had a rough idea of the costs involved when buying property out there, I was still unsure of the whole buying process in Turkey, because the more information you read the more confusing you get and this is what had happened in my case.

We reached early hours of the morning, exhausted from our trip but excited about finally arriving and knowing that soon we will be on our way to finding our dream holiday home…..we had pre arranged a private transfer from the UK with the guy we booked our villa to collect us from Bodrum Airport and take us to our villa which was in Yalikavak.

It was early Sunday morning and everyone was shattered so the first thing we did was crash on our beds to get a few hours of sleep before our first appointment with Serkan from myvillaturkey.com arrived at 11am.

11am sharp a tall middle-aged Turkish looking gentleman stood at the door, as I opened the door he asked for me by name and introduced himself, it wasn’t Serkan from myvillaturkey.com as I had expected, no instead Serkan had got the word around to local estate agents that we were coming and to show us properties that they had on their books (and I guess he would be earning some of the commission if the deal was done). In fact this guy was called Erkan the owner of Yalcin Emlak properties, very friendly and polite he told us that Serkan was in Istanbul and had sent him to show us some properties.

Erkan took us to view our first property on the outskirts of Turgutreis, he knew from the conversation that I had had with Serkan (back in the UK) that we had been interested in buying in Turgutreis, but because of the military restrictions as foreigners’ you would have to form a company with proper accounts and be trading for a year before we could legally own a house in this part of the peninsula. When I queried the area he said the area he was showing us was not part of the restricted zone so we could buy as it was just outside Turgutreis.