Mecitoglu is a great local construction company here in Side. They build Arcadia Apartments in 2005 and put them on sales as “project sales” on the web.
You can see a web-dump of their internet pages from 2005 here>>
The Building Phase
There is a Photo Gallery for the building phase here>>
The Sales Phase
Mecitoglu did not use sales agents. All sales was done by own staff and contract negotiations was done directly with the owners of the company. That gave the potential owners a feeling of trust. Mecitoglu was for us owners a trustful professional partner. They were honest about building details and they delivered what they promised.
The After Sales Phase
The first many years the Arcadia complex was managed by Mecitoglu “After Sales Services” department where tall Deniz and small Deniz were helpful in all ways. Bookings of transfer, cleaning and other services were done through the internet. Home Owners accounts were always updated and visible to the owner. Mecitoglu is a professional company. Site services were delivered for a reasonable yearly fee because they used all resources across all their developments.
Transfer to Lotus M
The Mecitoglu “After Sales Services” were efficient and price competitive – but illegal according to Turkish Condominium Law (TCL). A building company must transfer the property management responsibility to the home owners shortly after the building phase. Therefore a transition was necessary. See the mail to home owners in 2014 here>>
The transition from Mecitoglu to Lotus M was very difficult for the Home Owners. It was so easy when Mecitoglu provided all services and solved all problems for a reasonable low service fee. The home owners could behave as customers and complain if something was wrong.
According to TCL the home owners had to form a democratic and responsible community across many nationalities, and some of those nationalities did not have a democratic tradition a this level of the political structure. Lotus M was newly established and had difficulties in getting the structure, the processes and the accounts right according to TCL. This was a difficult and painful transition and first after a year and another transition to Side Property Management it starts to work ok. It has been a costly start and some lessons had to be learned the hard way.
Lotus M writes about themselves that they have been offering property management services since 2008. This is not correct. Lotus M was founded in 2014 and they had no IT-system or processes to manage. They had some skilled staff transferred from Mecitoglu.
Rise in Service Fees
The service fees have almost been doubled in the transition process from Mecitoglu to Lotus M in 2014. The main reason is that staff wages and social fees from 2014 have to adhere to Turkish Law (compliance issue). Staff wages was in 2015 about 6.500 TL per month. Mecitoglu could deliver the same service for a much lower price, and that came as a surprise to all home owners.