The Immovable Property Commission in North Cyprus

The property dispute in Cyprus emerged as a direct consequence of the War in the summer of 1974 when a Greek coup d’état for ENOSIS was carried out, and Turkiye intervened, using its Treaty right as a Guarantor State to preserve the 1960 Constitutional order. Ankara labeled the intervention a ‘Peace Operation’, but the Greeks decided to go to war, not only resisting the Turkish army, but attacking Turkish towns and villages, taking civilians prisoners. Greek Cypriots abandoned their homes and property in the face of advancing Turkish army. When Greeks failed in the war, the Greek Cypriot leadership accused Turkiye as an invader. As a result of the war, almost half of the island’s population was displaced by the fighting. About 2.5 million donums of land was abandoned by Greek Cypriots in the North who fled to the South, and nearly 0.5 million donums of Turkish Cypriot’s owned land was left behind in the South. Both ethnic landowners became dispossessed, blaming each other for violations of human rights and being unable to use their homes and property. The Greek Cypriots, in their thousands claiming restitution as original owners dispossessed by war, first sought remedy locally in the South and then applied to the European Court of Human Rights. In the Xenides Arestis test case, the Court proposed the creation of a body in Cyprus to act as a local remedy. Thus, the Immovable Property Commission (IPC) was established in 2006 by an action of the ECHR. It operates under the laws of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which, upon the request of the Greek Cypriot-controlled Republic of Cyprus, was declared “illegal” by the UN Security Council. The status of IPC is nevertheless de jure. Since 2006, IPC has received thousands of applications and settled almost a fifth with a total payment of 335 million Sterling Pounds, mostly as compensation.