The Immovable Property Commission has, over the past 7 years, received 4,749 applications for compensation from Greek Cypriots. Applications have increased in number because of the economic problems in South Cyprus.
When the Commission was formed in 2006, there were 600 applications that year; however over the last 3 months of 2013, the commission has already received 399 applications.
471 applications have been concluded, of which, 399 resulted in outright payments, and 5 concluded in compensation and land swaps.
Total compensation paid was £105,268,533.
The Immovable Property Commission was formed after it was proposed by the European Court of Human Rights in 2006.
Head of the Commission, Gungor Gunkan, said that at the start, applications were a trickle because of heavy South Cyprus propaganda but had been increasing steadily. This year, he expected the total applications to reach five thousand.
Mr Gunkan said that most applications were coming from children or grandchildren of the original owners, who had been born in the South and had no connections to North Cyprus.
He felt that the Commission was working at a reasonable pace and pointed out that similar applications to the European Court of Human rights had still not been resolved after 19 years. Factors that held the process back were lack of original paperwork from applicants and the time consuming process of translating everything into Greek, Turkish and English.
