16 replies to this topic

[lostinparadise]

I live in a small block of 6 apartments. I am on the top floor. There are constantly reoccuring problems with leaks from the water tanks above my apartment over the past year or so. The offending tanks both belong to the residents of the middle floor, both of whom rent their apartments. They refuse to do anything about it, and when I ask for the landlords telfphone number, they tell me they do not know it!!

A friend of mine climbed up on the roof this afternoon and told me the currently offending tank needs to be replaced completely.

When my own tank developed problems a few years ago, I simply called out a plumber who repaired it.

But I cannot understand why I should have to repair and replace everyone elses also - or have water destroy my ceiling and possibly (it happened last summer) drip onto my TV set below.

Is there any authority I can complain to about this? Who can maybe fine or otherwise motivate the owner/renter to do what is necessary to stop the problem?

I live in Fethiye, Mugla.

I don't know if its relevant, but the resident of the apartment currently causing the problem told me this morning that it couldnt be hers because the water authorities had turned off their supply because of non payment of the bill. The hallway tap of their apartment water supply has been wired up with a water board notice attatched. But the friend who checked this afternoon to discover for sure whose water tank was causing the problem says they have actually opened up their water supply somehow (very helpful practical friend but doesnt speak english - so I couldnt understand how they did it..its a bit technical for my turkish!)...which would mean they are receiving water illegally.

Any advice will be appreciated.

[Abi]

Sorry I don't have an answer maybe if you contacted one of our lawyers via PM in case they don't see this, I'm sure they would be able to help you

[lostinparadise]

Thanks for reply, but sorry I didnt really understand. What is PM? Does this website have lawyers who give free advice? That would be wonderful, but I cannot see any obvious info about this on the website.

[sunny]

I think what you need is 'Condominium Law' which I believe covers apartments. I tried to find a copy in English but the link I had isn't working any more. I will keep looking.

A PM is a personal message that you can send to other members by clicking on their name and then clicking on the appropriate box to open the page to write on.

We have a number of Lawyers who very generously are willing to give advise to our members. If you go to the box marked 'Members' near the top of the page and put in Lawyer, you should be able to find them.

Alternatively, you could write your query in the Law section of the forum and usually they check this regularly but being busy people you might have to wait a little while.

[noname]

Unruly neighbours are more common with apartments then with houses due to the close proxminity one has to share with and no one whats to share the blame for their selfishs acts,which leads to further conflicts.
The condominium ownership law does give you rights over unruly neighbours if they do not stop the anti social behaviour on the others sharing the building.
This law concerns everyone who lives in apartment blocks and must abide to this law,or face being heavily punished.Just recently new laws have been brought in to stop the ones making life so difficult for the neighbours in the apartment blocks.Either by not paying their cooperative share,fees repairs,maintance charges,will have their apartment dwelling sold by court decree.The dwelling will be sold at the value given by the courts.

Edited by noname, 25 April 2010 - 11:57 AM.

[sunny]

Here is a link to the Condominium Law kindly sent to me by beldibi which hopefully with be a useful reference for you lostinparadise.

http://www.turkeycen...p...msg&id=1088

http://www.turkeycen...p...msg&id=1087

[Abi]

Neither of the links will open for me Sunny?

[sunny]

Oh dear. A technical problem. I will have to ask for help. I'll be back!

[lostinparadise]

They wouldnt open for me either. But I will try again later.

I was in the town today and decided to try the Belediye. I told the security guard on the door the problem ...he pointed me towards the Zabita office. Told them the problem and not long after I returned home around two hours later, 2 zabita men on a motorbike showed up at my building to check the situation. They went off to track down the landlord and/or tenants. The tenants are out of the house most of the day as they run a secondhand shop ... I told the zabita where this was. I'm impressed with their politeness and speed .....but I dont know yet how much power they have to enforce things.

What puzzles me is that this problem has recurred on and off for the past couple of years and yet none of the other (Turkish born)residents has said anything but ...shrug...what can you do??? So I assumed there couldnt be a simple solution. (Of course its not actually been sorted out yet)

Meanwhile the Feski water office thoroughly cut off the supply early this morning (this is because the bill has not been paid ...nothing to do with the leaking water)...which has stopped the leak for today at any rate.

I will see what happens over the next day or so. If there is still a problem I will contact one of the lawyers on this website. Thanks very much for all the information ....even if I dont need to resort to it for this its good to know its there if I need it in the future for any reason.

[sunny]

I have sent a PM with a copy of the law as I haven't found a solution to the tech. problem yet.

The other T residents probably don't know about the law. It's surprising if the officials do.

[techguy]

It looks like you tried to provide a link to an attachement that you received in an email which is under your profile and nobody else can access.

Try attaching the actual document or using the actual link to the location of the document(s) on a web site.

Good luck!

[sunny]

I can't do either of the things you suggest techguy. I got the link by PM (which I copied and posted here) and because the document is long I don't want to copy and paste it on the forum.

[beldibi]

Sunny,
What I sent you were documents, not links. You can attach the documents to a .P.M., but as they are approx. 50 pages long, they are not suitable for posting on the forum.

[sunny]

Yes, thank you beldibi. I was hoping to post links but I have copy and pasted the document to lostinparadise.

[lostinparadise]

Sunny,
What I sent you were documents, not links. You can attach the documents to a .P.M., but as they are approx. 50 pages long, they are not suitable for posting on the forum.

Thanks very much for sending me the document Sunny. Its alot to take in, but definitely seems to cover water tanks amongst many other things. Alot of the early pages were about setting up a condominium agreement. Would the regulations still apply if one didnt exist?

My current situation is that I have had three days without any more water leaking onto my apartment ....but this is because the water supply is still disconnected (due to nonpayment of the bill). As far as I can tell, no repairs have been made (unless it was done very quickly when I was out shopping ...I've been home most of the time for the past two days). I've heard nothing more from the Zabita.

Thinking about it ...I am fairly sure that the landlady of both the 2nd floor rented out apartments is the same lady who spends a couple of weeks holiday in one of the ground floor ones. She lives in Germany, and has the same surname as the apartment itself. When I asked the offending tenant where the ev sahib was, her mother was with her and the mother replied 'Alamanyada'. I commented something along the lines of its going to be a hassle contacting her etc if she is out of the country...and the daughter quickly said ...no, not Alamanya, Afyon. (This is the same young woman who told me that it couldnt be there water causing the problem as it had been disconnected .....at the time when they had undone the disconnexion themselves ).

The problem is that the landlords are held responsible and the tenants take no responsibilty for the smallest repair ......but what happens when the landlord is living outside Turkey?

[lostinparadise]

Thanks very much for sending me the document Sunny. Its alot to take in, but definitely seems to cover water tanks amongst many other things. Alot of the early pages were about setting up a condominium agreement. Would the regulations still apply if one didnt exist?

My current situation is that I have had three days without any more water leaking onto my apartment ....but this is because the water supply is still disconnected (due to nonpayment of the bill). As far as I can tell, no repairs have been made (unless it was done very quickly when I was out shopping ...I've been home most of the time for the past two days). I've heard nothing more from the Zabita.

Thinking about it ...I am fairly sure that the landlady of both the 2nd floor rented out apartments is the same lady who spends a couple of weeks holiday in one of the ground floor ones. She lives in Germany, and has the same surname as the apartment itself. When I asked the offending tenant where the ev sahib was, her mother was with her and the mother replied 'Alamanyada'. I commented something along the lines of its going to be a hassle contacting her etc if she is out of the country...and the daughter quickly said ...no, not Alamanya, Afyon. (This is the same young woman who told me that it couldnt be there water causing the problem as it had been disconnected .....at the time when they had undone the disconnexion themselves ).

The problem is that the landlords are held responsible and the tenants take no responsibilty for the smallest repair ......but what happens when the landlord is living outside Turkey?

I returned from my holiday to find that the offending apartments water had been reconnected but the leak has been fixed ............ as there is a damaged water tank dumped in the back garden, it looks as if they have replaced it. So it looks as if the Zabita do have the power to enforce this kind of repair. As I said before, I was very impressed with how polite and efficient they were ...they began to deal with it immediately I reported the problem, and obviously did not give up in spite of an awkward tenant and out of the country landlord.

[Abi]

Thanks for the update and glad that it has been fixed as I was wondering how it was going. It is also good information for others on who to call if they have similar problems.