Your Egypt

[RoughShod]

Sharmcliff resident. As much as I sympothise with you over an unfullfilled dream, con artists for years have been taking people for a ride using the visions of peoples dreams . One would like to trust others in an environment of economic upliftment but it seems there is a fine line between greed and making a bargain. Negotiations between people are usually driven by a desire of the buyer to get a good deal with the seller of a product. Your seller now seems to be afflicted by alzheimers and you inherit the wife instead. It is unfortunate that such a thing should happen since she does not seem greedy enough to allow the place to be taken over by somebody else. But she does not seem capable of doing the administration herself?


As you said, she relies on the income of tenants to keep her going. That is an ongoing income she holds dear it seems to her continued financial existance. Yet, if what Harrison says is true.........The law now states that buyers(seller to you in this case) have only 3 years from buying the land to completing the building or else they lose it..... is it her land?She will lose everything if it s not. She has not completed building upon it...who decides if the land has building completed on it ? The major problem is you always linked to her fate, I am sure there must be some law in that country that allows you to be indemnified by the state when they take over land that has been approppriated by the state for failure of a buyer to meet the criteria set by the state


Who knows, if you could make this possibility real to that woman, she may take better care of her estate.

secondly, you own a part of the estate yourself, she is just an administrator of it, she does not own your place...you actually her boss?

You telling me there is no lawyer that can help you?

[sharmcliff resident]

"The Sinay Weekly" paper issue n. 38 of the 1st Sept. 08
sinaiweekly.com

What do you get if you put your money into the hands of an off-plan project owner you have not researched well enough? You get an 'all inclusive' package of headaches, extra payments and defeated expectations - all for a price of 47 thousand Euros.

"The 'Lucky' Ones": this was the harsh reality of nine foreign families living in 'Sharmcliff', a 'wanna-be-luxurious' compound on Hadabah.

Attracted by the nice design of the compound, the promised greenery of the region, as well as by relatively affordable prices, compound's perfect location and an approaching delivery date, these nine families purchased their flats being completely sure that within maximum one year they were going to invite their close friends for new-home celebration parties. But
life had other plans on this matter.

"The Scenes of a Horror Movie": "Back in 2005 when prices on property in Sharm were more than affordable, I decided to purchase a flat in Sharm El Sheikh." - Says Mrs. Cristina Gheza, a local resident - "The representative of the owner reassured me that the project will be completed in lots within 3 to 12 months, but seeing that the delivery date was postponed and the developer didn't do much to keep up his promises, I decided to move in." -She continues. This was not an easy task but after long negotiations and arguments with the owner Mrs. Cristina finally received the keys of the flat. The state she received it in was yet another story.

"Power supply was still under the generator, as the whole complex was connected to the main power station only three months later. I also had to install my own pump to have water on the second floor, waiting for the owner to install the main pump for the complex. Other promises, including a telephone line and a satellite remained on the long list of 'coming soon' services." - She remembers. Time didn't bring any improvements either, as open power cables still remain on the ground putting the security of residents at risk; rubbish is still seen on every corner increasing the amount of rats in the neighbourhood; the pool is still 'under construction';
the promised blossoming areas still have nothing but heaps of sand and withered grass; no handrails raise the risk of a dangerous drop from the second floor; no security services make this region a perfect spot for thieves and other criminals; and the building constructions in front of the compound still make a lot of dust and noise.

But this is not it: out of 78 promised flats, only 16 were completed up until now. Ten of them are occupied by the nine "lucky" foreign families (one family has two flats), while the other six belong to the project owner, who had turned them into staff housing and rented them out.

"Behind the Scenes": the person who made this nightmare a reality is a reliable and honest businessman with an irreproachable reputation. His official web-site depicts him as a leader in such fields as "urban and touristic developments, housing, floating hotels and Nile cruises, ostrich farming, agriculture as well as oil and gas exploration." What it forgot to mention, and as stated by Mrs. Cristina Gheza, "is that Sami el Ashram is serving a six months' sentence for 17 cases on fraud and money speculations, including a huge debt of 6 million USD to one of the national banks. Being arrested, he could no longer control the project bringing him a solid
income. He needed an assistant that was soon found in the face of his wife Lamia also called 'the walking nightmare'".

After her husband was put behind bars, Mrs. Lamia is taking a full charge over the project. "Under her strict supervision we were forced to pay maintenance for the non-existing services, greenery, pool and security. Furthermore, due to the fact that Mrs. Lamia did not pay the power supply bills, the electricity of the whole compound was cut off. We also had to pay 7,500 L.E. on the spot to have it back on the same day; and another 7,500 L.E. during the following month. The same thing happened with the water supply. These people stole our money, as every month we were paying Lamia our personal consumption of water and electricity." - says Mrs. Cristina.
"And while we were struggling to solve the problems, Mrs. Lamia was doing her best to make our lives miserable. My new-born child and I had to live through the summer of 2007 with no water and electricity, as Lamia cut my water and power supply after having a fight with my Egyptian husband Fares" - Mrs. Lynne Barry told 'The Sinai Weekly' - "plus if anything went out of order in the compound due to her recklessness, she would refuse to take any responsibility giving us the fix-it-yourself attitude" - continues the owner of one of the flats. And they did, paying for pumps and pipes, burning power lines, garbage collection and 'maintenance' from their own pockets. The estimated expenses have already reached 30,000 L.E. with other inevitable portion of payments on its way.

But if the material damage can be estimated, the emotional and psychological damage caused to all those living under the compound's roof remains unevaluated: "who will refund us for all our efforts, for all the sleepless nights and the nerves, for all the tears and the threats, for all the horrible nights when you come back home in an anticipation of the worst to happen?" - asked Mrs. Claire Lipp, another victim of Sami-Lamia cooperation. And, unfortunately, these questions are still hovering unresolved in the air.

"Any Light at the End of the Tunnel?" "We were trying to fight back Lamia filing a report to the Governor of the region, but having already sold the land to Mr. Sami he was no longer in power to do anything on the matter, so we decided to hire an attorney," - says Mrs. Florence Zabe, another resident of the compound. "With her help we raised two core cases: one- against the owner, the other dealing with water and power supply. But these actions infuriated Mrs. Lamia even more, as threats, personal insults and constant shouting became our everyday reality."

"We were blackmailed as well, as Mrs. Lamia refuses paying the water and the power bills for the whole compound in an attempt to force us to drop the charges. This is why we pay water and power bills not only for our own flats but also for the six rented out," - says Mr. Robert Wilce, a resident of 'Sharmcliff' since 2006 - " every month we pay far too much, specially now during the hot summer. Our expenses have already reached ridiculous levels and we are struggling to make the both ends meet!" - He added.

And there is more, as insanity doesn't know any borders: "You can expect anything from a woman carrying a knife," - Mrs. Stefanie Rukes told the paper - "her actions are totally unpredictable: once she steals a water tank from a roof of the resident, another time she blames us for things we haven't done, and yet another time she blocks the entrance to the compound with bricks not allowing us to park our cars on its territory. With zero security in this area and with the growing crime rates, I will not leave my car behind the gates of the compound." - Continued the resident.

Fortunately, the brick wall was soon eliminated with the help of General Haroun as well as other public officials, who came for residents' rescue. "This is only the first step in the long process of problem solving. I hope political figures will hear our plea for help," - commented Mr. Alessandro Greggio, a local resident - "we met with different foreign investors offering Lamia to sell the project for big amounts of money. But it seems that she'd decided to torture us, as she refused to sell it at any cost." -
He added. Why? We will all find out pretty soon.

"Panacea from Fraud" : "naturally, there is not such a thing as 'panacea from investors' fraud', but there is such a thing as 'your own investigation'" - says Mrs. Margaret Wilce, another member of the "deceived residents circle", - "before you buy anything in any part of the world check the reliability of the developers, their background and other projects carried out by them. Talk to people, register on forums, visit useful websites and ask for recommendations. I would also recommend to hire a reliable lawyer who would make the 'investigation process' a lot easier. A power contract is also a must, because this document will be able to prove your rights on the property if need be." - She continued.
Due to the bad experience these residents had, "none of us recommends investing in off-plan developments," - said Mrs. Cristina Gheza, - "but again we were unlucky." Sharm has many positive examples where developers kept their promises and delivered services to the highest standards. So if you consider buying a property, please do it intelligently, treat the issue with an extreme shrewdness, and care and remember to learn from other people's mistakes.

See original article at: sharmcliff.info

[sharmcliff resident]

Corruption, according to the Wikipedia, is a general concept describing any organized, interdependent system in which part of the system is either not performing duties it was originally intended to, or performing them in an improper way, to the detriment of the system's original purpose. When exchange of money or other value is involved, it's also called "bribery". Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or other person in discharge of a public or legal duty.

Corruption and bribery exists in any country around the globe, no doubt about it. Bribery around the world is estimated at about $1 trillion. The question is in what extend in Egypt. And in our specific case at Sharmcliff Residence, is corruption and bribery involved? When you are victim of numerous illegal actions for a long extend of time, but no action is taken against it by the competent authorities and not even going to court solves anything, this is undoubtedly what you start to suspect.

The problem is it's hard to proof. Both briber and bribed know it's a crime, so will not speak. Also in our case there is a lack of hard evidence, but there are many facts that make corruption being involved very, very likely. Here we try to name some of these facts:

- First of all the declarations of the suspected briber (the project owners wife). In several occasions she proclaimed to have powerful "connections", that will back her up. It's incredible how people can be proud to make part of a corrupted system.

- Following a wrong recommendation we took a lawyer, Fatma Barakat, to open a court case to have private power and water meters. Similar cases in Sharm had all a positive result, but not in our case. Court sentence: "Solve it yourself". As if we didn't try that before, what the hell are we starting a court case for, paying a lawyer? Strong suspicions exist of our lawyer being bribed by the counter party, as she never answers or replies our phone calls and is nowhere to be found. Many similar experiences with lawyers in Sharm exist and we advise everyone strongly not to pay a lawyer in advance like we did (7 x LE 5000=LE 35000, how stupid we could be. Wasted money.), but only cover expenses made (with seeing the receipt). We took a new one under those conditions. Incredible but true, like in many western countries, you never can be sure your own lawyer is on your side. We would like to give you some lawyer jokes, but the problem is that lawyers don't think they're funny, and nobody else thinks they're jokes.

- The same as mentioned above that like requested by us and covered by the same sum of money as mentioned a court case was started for refund of our money paid for the apartments. Not any court case was started anywhere, despite her declarations. Studying corruption points out that many cases involve not doing something that could normally be expected.

- A mountain of accumulated of rubbish was besides the main building, so we made a report to the city council for littering. One day before the inspection should arrive, magically private trucks came to take it away. How could the project owner know? The city council had not informed them about the upcoming inspection, nor did we.

- In itself how is it possible that we have to suffer lack of everything we paid for by contract, lack of power and water, physical violence, rubbish and rats for over a year now, asking help from the authorities and going to court. Isn't this enough evidence of corruption being involved. Unfortunately not.

- Last but not least. Lately we saw a police car coming every night and park in a hidden way. We are not sure if they used an apartment or went to the prostitutes that are lodgers of the project owner. Also here we suspect something that smells bad, so we informed the only helpful person we know at the police that came right away and ended this immediately. This, together with bringing down the wall build to close us in, are the only substantial actions taken in our favour.

Let anybody that is bribed by the project owner be warned, that it won't go unnoticed and we will write about it. Corruption should be exposed.

[saffron]

Quote: ...But these actions infuriated Mrs. Lamia even more, as threats, personal insults and constant shouting became our everyday reality."...
So why doesn't someone just shoot her in the head and chop her body into tiny pieces, burn it, or throw it in a ditch somewhere out in the empty quarter? WHo would care?

I would not be a victim. I'd give it back to her twice as hard. OR I'd just move. I know how bad it is living with awful people, but at least you can move can't you? Instead of being a victim, get out of there, and then retaliate later.

[Magdythinker]

Not that impressed with your mentality or the size of your brain cant you figure it out ????? 9 families purchased an apartment for 47 thousand euros they sank their hard earned cash in this project these people are not rich so one doesnt "just" move !!!

[saffron]

Magdythinker wrote: Not that impressed with your mentality or the size of your brain cant you figure it out ????? 9 families purchased an apartment for 47 thousand euros they sank their hard earned cash in this project these people are not rich so one doesnt "just" move !!! Oh go screw yourself!

[ratty]

saffron wrote: Magdythinker wrote: Not that impressed with your mentality or the size of your brain cant you figure it out ????? 9 families purchased an apartment for 47 thousand euros they sank their hard earned cash in this project these people are not rich so one doesnt "just" move !!! Oh go screw yourself!

lol

[Magdythinker]

Butch vulgar and dumb you just confirmed my first impression of you

[RoughShod]

Lol, hey when you going to carry on with your 'other' observations Magdy?