CHAPTER ONE

We came to Turkey 5 years ago looking to buy a property for an investment.  We were introduced to Oracle by a friend and were taken to view some of their properties, we were very impressed.  We decided to purchase a 4 bedroomed villa on the next complex due to be built my them.  The whole purchasing procedure ran very smoothly,  Oracle were very helpful and we became the proud owners of a villa.

After this good start, we came to Altinkum 3 or 4 times a year, met many lovely people and loved the area, the way of life here was very appealing.  In October 2005 a friend of ours who owned a bar and an Estate Agency asked if we would like to invest with him and build 4 luxury villas. We considered this a good investment so we signed contracts with him.

In January 2006 we decided, if we were going into business in Turkey, we should be more hands on and live here full time. Paul, my husband liked the idea but knew it would take him about a year to sell our house and business in England, so he suggested I came out on my own, before we heaved our children Georga 16 and Jordon 14 over, and see if I really liked it. On March 3^rd 2006 I left England alone and petrified but very excited.

After being here a few weeks it was obvious to me how much building work was going on in Altinkum and I had a change of heart and decided I didn’t want to risk all our savings on the building project. Neither did I want to go back to England. After talking things over with Paul, we decided the family should come over in April for a holiday and see if we could find something different to invest in.

April 2006, Paul, Georga and Jordon arrived for their first 2 week holiday, our friend Cobra came to visit us and between us we came up with the idea of an adventure centre, quad biking, paintballing, fishing, diving, hiking etc, it all sounded great.

We starting gathering information we would need to set up the business. Where to get the equipment from?  Easy, you might think hmm!!!

In the meantime we were also looking for some land.  Friends of Cobras offered us the use of their land up in the mountains behind Akbuk. It was ideal, stunning views, no big outlay and  the only condition was that their son be made a partner. Sounds perfect!!

The land was in the district of Mugla and this was where we went to enquire about planning permission, electric, water, in fact everything we needed to set up the business legally.

The holiday was coming to an end and Paul and Jordon were going home, Georga decided to stay with me in Altinkum for the summer at least, and go back to England in the Winter. I would get the ground work done before everyone came over to live.

We decided to set up business with Cobra.  He had his own estate agency but decided to give it up and put everything he had into the new business with his brother and Paul as partners. In total this cost about 4000 YTL and about 20 trips to Izmir.

After about 5 months of negotiations with land owner, Mugla offices and everyone else concerned, we were ready to start. First, we had to lay a road and dig footings at a cost of 8500 YTL. Then, we had to get Electricity and Water to the land.  It was at this point we were told that this was not allowed on this piece of land, we were gutted and couldn’t believe it. The owner of the land said he had another plot with buildings already erected so there wouldn’t be a problem there (are we naïve or stupid or what!!) We went and had a look and decided to go for it.

I was in contact daily with Paul via the internet and he was getting very frustrated, I couldn’t make him understand how different and difficult it was here. He was due to come back to Altinkum in August so I thought I would take a back seat and let him find out for himself.

One of the biggest problems we had was the inability to speak Turkish. I decided to take lessons, my teacher Ayse was lovely and we got on really well (but not the Turkish unfortunately)  Ayse was very helpful and informative, one of the things I learned was that if you have a company and one of the partners die, their next of kin gets the business passed down to them (alarm bells started ringing!!!)   We were setting this business up for the benefit of our family and didn’t want to risk loosing it.

Also, we were told, you should have a contract with land owner as he was offering the land to you but you would be developing the land with your own money.

We decided to pull out of the business partnership with Cobra although this caused a lot of tension but we explained as clearly as we could the reasons for our decision and Cobra accepted them.  We decided to set up a new company, we didn’t know how much it would cost to close one and open another as no one could explain the legalities of it all.

In November 2006 Paul and Jordon moved to Turkey, In January 2007 we had the contract drawn up and took it to be signed, unfortunately they took offence and said we didn’t trust them. We said no contract, no deal, as we hadn’t paid yet for the land.  We walked away, another 12000 YTL wasted.

At this point we didn’t know what to do next, should we forget the whole thing or look for something else? Or what?

  CHAPTER TWO

 The hunt was on. We decided to put the word out that we were looking for land in the Bosbuk area , it didn’t take long before we got a response.  We found a plot we liked and were told it was 40,000 YTL, we agreed to buy and suddenly the price shot up to 50,000 YTL. I walked away before I punched someone. Forget the whole thing  I told myself, put the money in the bank and forget the whole business. (Perhaps in hindsight this is exactly what I should have done).

A few days later there was a knock at the door and some associates of Cobras who had heard we were looking for land said they had a plot for 40,000 YTL if we were interested. We went to have a look and low and behold, it was the same piece of land, suddenly dropped 10,000 YTL, I was so angry I offered him 15,000 YTL and walked off.

Paul and Cobra took over negotiations and were told we could build on 5% of the land no problem so they shook hands and agreed a price of 28,000 YTL, all costs to be paid for by the land owner.    A few days later we were at the Tapu office in Mugla applying for the Tapu only to be told it is “Zetinli Tarla” and British people couldn’t own this type of land.

 Paul and I knew we could trust Cobra enough to put it into his name.  I think we had all got blinkered, we kept getting knock back after knock back, we just all so wanted this business it was like a disease to us that we couldn’t let go of… so we purchased the land.

 Well all we had to do now was find a decent builder. (Not too hard you think) hmmmm.

All we wanted was a concrete base and a pool. Paul is a builder and would do the rest himself.  By now we are fast running out of time, we wanted to open 1^st May at the start of the holiday season.

We found a guy with a digger who charged 50 YTL per hour and seemed very nice and helpful and said he would find the right people to help us.    We tried to get a quote from the builder up front and wanted a contract signed so we would know exactly how much the job would cost. As we all know the price suddenly increases if you wait till after the job is finished to pay the bill.  It was impossible to get a contract, they always ask for the money up front here, so every time he asked for money we made him sign for it, stating how much we had given him and what it was for.

Things weren’t going too bad, we were a bit behind time but we were getting there. Paul asked Cobra to speak to the builders as they had received most of their money and they seemed to have a lot of work still to do.  We were then told some things that we had paid for were not in the quote.   i.e  The water tankers needed for the water to make the concrete. I find this most strange as all the buildings are made of concrete and to forget that you would need the water tankers must be also impossible.

Next they said they used more steel than they had anticipated in the concrete. How could we check this, when the steel is buried under god knows how many feet of concrete.  Then to top it all, the Builders supplier, who we didn’t know and had no dealings with, gets in touch with us saying the builder hadn’t paid him for the materials, and we had to. (Am I living on another planet?)  I know things are different here but do we really have to pay other people’s bills too? Altogether these extras came to 15,000 YTL.

What would be next we wondered!!!!

 CHAPTER THREE

November 2006.   We bought 2 YUKI ATV’s for the centre.  The bikes are ideal but we felt we needed something easier to ride for beginners as these had 5 gears.  We searched what seemed to be the whole of Turkey on the internet.    In February 2007 we found a company in Izmir who supplied  bikes from Celik Motors in Istanbul. We purchased 2 bikes from them.

On receiving the bikes we were told there was no service available in Altinkum to assemble the bikes.  We phoned Izmir who informed us we could use the same service people we used for the first two bikes of course they charged us, 160 YTL per bike. One blew up after approximately 16 hours of usage the second blew up on arrival.

We spent several months trying to get the parts for bike 2 with no joy, so we agreed with Istanbul to send the bike back to them and they would return our money.  When they received the bike they said the bumper was broken and they wouldn’t refund us, we spent weeks trying to sort this out . We went to the police who informed us it was not a criminal offence and they were powerless.  Istanbul had my bike and money but this was ok!! 

 The police had suggested that we went to a solicitor but we knew the cost involved would be more than just paying the carriage on the return of the bike so we contacted Istanbul and they agreed to make the bike good and send it back to us if we paid the transport cost.

 On return of the bike we rode it for  two hours and it blew up yet again!!!

 Bike 1 had ceased up the day before and was at the Service Centre.  When we got there with Bike 2 they told us they couldn’t repair them as they were not the correct service company. We got in touch with Istanbul who directed us to the correct Service Centre, we took the bikes in and checked a few days later expecting them to be ready for use again.  We were told that as we had used the wrong service company previously the warranties weren’t valid but if we paid for the parts, 390 YTL they would guarantee them from then on.   You don’t want to know what we were thinking then and it is a good job they couldn’t understand us.  More fool us, we agreed, after all our business was open and we needed all our bikes.

“Surprisingly” it took four weeks for the parts to come, only to be told they were the wrong parts!! Well, well what a surprise.  They sent more and the mechanic repaired Bike 2.  When testing the bike it ceased again!! On further inspection he noticed the oil pumps on both bikes were too small, so not pumping enough oil around the engine.  He didn’t give up, he repaired bike 2 again even though this time they had sent him parts that had been used. 

 He called and said the bike was ready; we went to collect it, 20 mins down the road just after filling up with petrol…yes it ceased up again!! That’s it, enough is enough, we went to a solicitor who wrote a letter asking for our money back, this cost 180 YTL.  The reply we got from Izmir was that the bikes were in perfect working order when they left them. How can this be?? The bikes were delivered to us in a box and had to be assembled. How can they say they were in working order??  We have now sent a second solicitors letter at a cost of 165 YTL and are awaiting a response.

 Surely things can’t get any worse!!!

 CHAPTER FOUR

 We didn’t get the work finished on the land, the pool was almost finished when the workers said they couldn’t work any longer as it was too hot.!! Hmmmmmm

 We proceeded to start the quad adventures and we were reasonably busy even though most of the time we only had two bikes out of the four on the road at any one time.   The poor instructor had to use a moped (don’t forget this is all off road)  We had some lovely guests who thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  As our place wasn’t finished we found a nice restaurant in Carsamba to take them to eat, relax and have a swim.

 On one of our trips up to the land we found a letter on the door, more trouble you might ask?   We had the document translated and it was telling us to stop building as we hadn’t got planning permission.  What!!!!  we screamed, when we were purchasing the land we asked this question , they made some phone calls and we were told, yes it is fine as long as we don’t go over 5%. Tell me what more could we do.  We asked and that was what we were old.  Now we have nearly a 9000 YTL fine.

Believe me when I say we are living on Pasta.  This whole experience has cost us all our savings.  We’ve put our  villa and our apartment up for sale but we all know resales aren’t selling at the moment as there are so many new builds going up here.  I’ve sold all my gold.  My son is going back to England to live with my sister.

 My conclusion on this whole fiasco is we had a great idea and we did our homework to the best of our ability (although obviously not good enough). The two blown up bikes cost us a lot of money in lost business and it will be a great shame if we are not able to finish the land and expand what we know could be an excellent business; the resort really needs these kind of activities.

 Written by

Lorraine Wright.

Its now 2008 and YES!!!!! we are ready for the new season...BOOK EARLT TO AVOID DISSAPIONTMENT!!!!!!!!!!!