Didim Today

“I got your e-mail address from an expat website forum and was wondering if you could help me by giving me some advice. We are an English family and we were living in an apartment for two years. The first year, we signed a contract saying we would pay the landlord cash rent every month, and every month we did so. But, unfortunately, the landlord wouldn’t give us any receipts for these payments.

We left the property in March 2010 and went into a new rented apartment, which we found through an estate agency, and made sure this time we had all the legal documents. “Anyway, in August 2010 we received a letter from the icra [court of claims] saying that the landlord was saying we owe him money (which we don’t as we paid everything when we were there). When we received the icra [letter], my father telephoned the number on it and said he didn’t want to come to any meeting as he hadn’t done anything wrong and didn’t owe anyone any money.

We now realize that we made a huge mistake by not going to the meeting. “Anyway, after this we didn’t hear anything until yesterday, Saturday Jan. 22, when someone from the icra office and a solicitor came saying we need to pay the debt or they will remove all our furniture from our home.

When I questioned them about this, they said we should go to their office on Monday to discuss everything with them and our old landlord. I am really worried now that we have to pay the money or lose our furniture when we haven’t done anything wrong and are completely innocent.

If you can give us any help and advice on this subject, I would be very grateful as I am so worried now. Thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing from you. Sarah” Sarah, I think you have already missed the seven days granted to challenge the payment order.

For the sake of clarity and informing other readers, I will first explain the legal procedure briefly. When you receive a payment order for ordinary reasons, you have seven days, starting on the day the payment order is delivered to you, to challenge this payment order.

If you fail to challenge the payment order, your silence will be deemed as acceptance. In other words, if you receive a payment order and do not challenge it within seven days of receiving it, the execution office shall accept the claim of the other party without any further questions and you will be treated as being in debt. The execution office (the sheriff’s office) will keep the process running as if you are in debt and you will have to start legal action before the courts to prove that you don’t owe the claimant.

During this process, the other party shall be called the “creditor” and you will be called the “debtor,” and these titles of the parties shall remain in force until the end of the process. How and where should I make objections?

You should apply to the legal body (official collection office) noted on the payment order. Please take the original copy or at least a copy of the payment order with you. I strongly recommend you file the objection with the assistance of a lawyer. If you have to do it yourself, please make sure you clearly state your objections. You don’t have to state any reasons for your objection.

Berk Cektir http://www.berkcektir.av.tr/ The information provided here is intended to give basic legal information. You should get legal assistance from a licensed attorney at law while conducting legal transactions and not just rely on the information in this corner. http://www.todayszaman.com/ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it