LakeView investors open police case against developer

Investors in Emirates City, a project in Ajman, have laid a complaint with police against the developer, Lakevew Real Estate.

Investors in Emirates City, a project in Ajman, have laid complaints with police against one of the developers, Lake View Real Estate, which they allege took their deposits but has failed to begin construction work. Many investors said they paid more than 40 per cent in a five-tower project within Emirates City, along the Emirates Road in Ajman, but little progress has been made on development. The group also alleges that the chief executive of Lakeview, Aman Qureshi, has been out of contact for months. "I am in touch with 67 investors," said Nasar Haq, a founder member of the investors' group, who bought a floor in Lakeview Tower 5 in April. "I keep on getting inquiries, calls from all over the world. Nothing has been built so far, and Aman Qureshi, the owner of the company, is nowhere to be found." Salah al Din Arif, another investor, bought a flat in Aug 2007 that was scheduled for delivery in November this year. He has paid 41 per cent so far: "I visited the project site in March 2009 and was shocked when I found that nothing at all was done despite regular paying." In the meantime, investors say the company has continued to cash their postdated cheques, a violation of Ajman's recently introduced property laws. Developers may not take money from investors without setting up an escrow account and registering their projects with the emirate's new property oversight body, the Ajman Real Estate Regulatory Agency (ARRA). Under the law, all deposits must be used for construction costs of the specified project and cannot be redirected for any other purpose. "They promised not to cash the cheques but in May they did without warning," Mr Arif said. "Then they apologised to the bank for that, but I never got my money back." Investors said they had been trying to get in contact with Mr Qureshi, the owner and chief executive of Lake View, since January. However, they said he could not be reached and did not respond to their phone calls. They said another company representative, the administration manager Suhail Ghani Quraishi, had told them to be patient and that all relevant documents had been handed to the ARRA for registration. An ARRA spokesman confirmed that Lake View was not registered yet. Another investor, Andrei Semyachkin of Russia, alleged he was sold a project that has since been abandoned, but he was yet to be given back his money. Mr Semyachkin paid a 10 per cent deposit for a floor in Lake View Twin Towers, another Lakeview development in Ajman still at the planning stage, in September last year. "In January, Mr Qureshi promised to refund my money, as they were planning to cancel the Lake View Twin Towers," he said in an e-mail. He never received his money back and has subsequently filed a case with police. "I have paid more than Dh418,000 [US$113,000] for nothing." Management at Lakeview could not be reached, but a sales representative who asked not to be identified said some work had begun. "Piling of tower one and two has been completed. So it does not mean that nothing is there," he said. The salesman said that the company had also been in touch with the real estate regulatory authority: "ARRA has asked for some documents from us, which I think we did. They will decide in two weeks to register projects or not." [e-mail]