Al-Masry Al-Youm has received new notifications filed to the Public Prosecutor by some 20 people who booked places in the fourth stage of the Becho American City project in Maadi. They accused the company of being behind schedule, as their units mentioned in the contracts should have been delivered to them nine months ago, while only the foundations have actually been laid. Furthermore, Al-Masry Al-Youm has obtained a copy of an official document issued by El-Basateen District in Cairo Governorate. It reads that no permit has been granted for the construction of many buildings in the different phases of the project. The original document has been submitted to Maadi Court, which is looking into the lawsuits filed against the company.
The customers' lawyer, Kamel Gomaa Abou Rahab, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the customers who booked housing units in the fourth phase suddenly learnt around seven months ago that the company refused to take the last installment as defined in the contracts between them for unknown reasons. He pointed out that they wrote a procès-verbal against the company at Maadi police station stating that the company refused to take the installment and deliver their housing units on time. He also said that, in the meantime, the company is demanding the payment of LE 35,000 to LE 45,000 in cash to start the delivery, which contradicts the terms of the contract. He added: "My clients deposited the specified amounts into the Court treasury in the name of the company waiting for a delivery which should have taken place nine months ago. They then visited the spot where the housing units should stand and they unexpectedly found out once more that only the foundations had been laid." He pointed out that he submitted some notifications to the Public Prosecutor accusing the company's legal representative of taking over the customers' money and defrauding them. He said the company deluded them into believing there were housing units available and entered into contracts on these units for huge amounts of money, while there is actually no trace of these housing units on the ground. Al-Masry Al-Youm has obtained a copy of an official document issued by El-Basateen District in Cairo Governorate. It says the company did not request all the necessary permits for the fourth phase. It also says the company asked the urban planning department at the Governorate to change and divide the land allocated for that phase. The Governorate, though, has not made a final decision on this request so far, so it has not issued the required permits for this phase.
The original report of the district has been deposited in Maadi Court. It points out that the first phase, in which the company delivered a large number of units, has been divided into 56 lots, but permits were issued for only 29 of them. As for the other permits, they were not issued because no report came from the Housing and Building Research Center on the fitness of the buildings, and this puts the lives of those who received those units at risk. The district's document says that the second stage is divided into 12 lots, but permits were issued only for two of them. As for the third phase, it is divided into 17 lots, but permits have been issued for only seven of them. Moreover, the company did not submit to the district the documents concerning the permits of the buildings, and has not informed it of the end of the works in the lots for which permits have been issued. This way, the district cannot make the necessary concordances to introduce facilities and inform the Civil Defense. On the other hand, Maadi Prosecution, under the supervision of its chief Ahmed Dabis, has started investigating into the notifications against the company officials. According to the investigations, the prosecution issued an arrest warrant and a subpoena against the company owner; however he had not appeared yet before the Prosecution when the newspaper went to the press. Instead, some lawyers appeared on his behalf and promised to deliver the housing units to the customers gradually in the near future. The prosecution heard the testimonies of six more of the 80 customers who submitted the notifications until yesterday. They unanimously affirmed before Deputy Prosecutor Ahmed El-Shanawi that they reserved housing units from the company and paid all the installments. Yet, they said the company unexpectedly refused to deliver those units for no clear reason.
Al-Masry Al-Youm has learnt that some customers started receiving their units yesterday with the walls not being painted and without the Super Deluxe essential internal services as stipulated by the contract, in an attempt to refute the reasons behind the notifications filed against the company. According to these notifications, the date of the contract is 2010, which means the delivery is taking place at least a year earlier. Meanwhile, some fourth-phase customers have refused to receive their housing units waiting for the results of the Public Prosecutor's investigations.
