Deputy Speaker and Her Husband Knew Apartments Were Owned By Other People
Roza Hovhannisyan, Reporter
Law – 20 September 2014, 22:24
While the trial of Norashen 2007 Consumer Cooperative’s housing
project continues at the Court of Common Jurisdiction of
Administrative Districts of Ajapniak and Davitashen Districts, the
aggrieved citizens continue to claim back their apartments from the
Republican deputy speaker of parliament Hermine Naghdalyan and her
husband, the ex-head of the tax service of Artashat Davit Beglaryan.
Last time Davit Beglaryan told the residents in court that he would
return the apartments for a payment of 6-8 thousand dollars but
outside the courtroom he said: “You’ll not get anything.”
To build a block of apartments at 14/3 Gevorg Cha’oosh Street,
Yerevan, the management of Norashen 2007 Consumer Cooperative
collected prepayments from buyers of apartments in the new building
and signed prepayment deals. Sales agreements were to be signed with
the owners of the apartments in the final stage of building.
However, during the construction Norashen 2007 faced financial issues,
and Lusabek Samvelyan and Armen Tadevosyan, the heads of the
cooperative, offered some apartments as collateral to borrow money
from different people on interest to complete construction.
24 apartments were offered to the president of Esco Concern Sargis
Aghabekyan who was arrested for usury and returned the apartments to
the owners. 14 apartments were offered as collateral to Hermine
Naghdalyan and her husband, the others with different people.
Over the past few years Naghdalyan and her husband have returned 8
apartments but not free of charge. Lragir.am has learned from the
aggrieved residents that they had to pay some money to the spouses.
“We have learned that one of the residents paid 20,000 dollars,
another one paid 7000, the others paid 10,000-15,000 dollars to get
their apartments back from Davit Beglaryan,” one of the aggrieved
residents Shushanik Aghababyan told Lragir.am whose apartment is now
registered in the name of Hermine Naghdalyan. She told me that Davit
Beglaryan is still demanding money from the residents to return their
apartments. “Beglaryan said in court he would not give the apartments
back without money, pay me 6-8 thousand dollars, and I will give them
back. But after this statement he has not been picking up the phone,
has not met with us, he says the trial will end, and he will decide to
give them back or not,” he says.
Earlier Davit Beglaryan used to meet with residents. Now he avoids
meetings. During the meetings he talked frankly to the deceived
residents that his wife, Hermine Naghdalyan, does not want to return
the apartments, she says it is a matter of principle. Naghdalyan said:
“Lyova [Lusabek-ed.] and Armen should not think that they deceived
me.” In one of the meetings the deputy speaker even threatened one of
the residents. This episode was recorded in one of Shushanik
Aghababyan’s testimonies.
During that meeting Naghdalyan told residents that she will answer in
a week for how much money she will return each apartment. One of the
residents said “Mrs. Hermine, if you deceive us, we will hold
demonstrations in front of the universities of your children.” Hermine
Naghdalyan put her finger on the forehead of the resident and said: “I
shot Turks. I will shoot anyone who will upset my child.”
Currently Hermine Naghdalyan and her husband hold 6 apartments but the
number of aggrieved residents is many more because in some cases two
people share the same apartment. In particular, Grisha Mkrtichyan,
Haik Hambardzumyan, Karen Tashyan, Mkhitar Hambardzumyan, Zemfira
Gyagunts, Karmen Mamikonyan, Shushanik Aghababyan, Marieta
Khondkaryan, Vazgen Bojukyan are among the aggrieved persons.
Carmen Mamikonyan has paid the full amount for the apartment, 27,000
dollars. In September 2009 she paid 22,000 dollars, she paid the
remaining 7000 dollars during six months. Besides, she spent another
3000 dollars to make the apartment fit to live. “I rent an apartment,
it was not easy to live in a rented apartment, I thought if I did some
work on the apartment, I would finish work by the time the builder
completes construction, and I would immediately move in. In April 2010
we already learned that our apartments were held by others, and I
stopped the work I was doing. We were working there all the time but
nobody ever came and said this is my apartment, why I was decorating
it?” she said.
Carmen Mamikonyan is still living in a rented apartment. Carmen
Mamikonyan had signed a prepayment agreement certified by a notary
which states that the builder was to hand it over after six months
from buying the apartment. According to the contract, Carmen
Mamikonyan bought space of 60.2 square meters on the seventh floor of
the building. The residents regularly contacted the heads of the
cooperative Armen Tadevosyan and Lusabek Samvelyan.
“When we learned that our apartments are held by others, I went to
Lusabek Samvelyan and asked what was going on. I said I had heard that
they have offered our apartments as collateral to borrow money on
interest. He said our apartments were not concerned, and those were
the office space on the ground floor and parking lots. He said they
cannot complete construction, the space has been offered as collateral
to borrow money and complete construction,” he said.
When the residents learned that the apartments had been held by over
twenty other people, Lusabek Samvelyan told Carmen Mamikonyan that
Davit Beglaryan would return the apartments.
“Lusabek said Beglaryan is a decent person, he would not do anything
wrong, he will return your apartments, I will repay him the money and
he will give you the certificates of ownership,” the aggrieved
resident told us.
Carmen Mamikonyan says they paid 450 dollars per square meter, while
the builder borrowed 200 dollars per square meter from Hermine
Naghdalyan and Davit Beglaryan. “At first, Beglaryan said we will
return your apartments. Then he started saying that he has bought
those apartments and cannot give them to us. I met Davit Beglaryan
several times, first he demanded 10,000 dollars to return my
apartment. Then he demanded 5000 dollars. He said give me the money, I
will give you the apartment. I said I did not have the money, I had
sold my apartment to cover the surgery of my child. I don’t have that
much money to give him, if I had a place to live, I would never get
involved in that thing, I would immediately give up on that apartment.
I have been living in a rented apartment for already five years. When
the case was at the office of the Prosecutor General, Beglaryan said
give up on that apartment and I will give you 20,000 dollars. But I
thought I would hardly buy an apartment in Yerevan for 20,000
dollars,” Carmen Mamikonyan said.
The management of the cooperative signed fictive sales agreements with
the persons from whom they had borrowed the money. Armen Tadevosyan
who is accused of stealing major property from different persons and
tax avoidance, said he had borrowed 300,000 dollars from Davit
Beglaryan at a monthly interest of 5% and signed fictive sales
contracts with him.
During the confrontation with Davit Beglaryan on 11 May 2011, Armen
Tadevosyan said he met Beglaryan in late 2009, at the office of the
cooperative.
“At that time we needed money to continue the construction. We made a
deal with Davit Beglaryan, he lent us 300,000 dollars on monthly
interest of 5%, and we gave him apartments under fictive sales
agreements to secure the amount. The space that we offered as
collateral was assessed at 200 dollars per square meter. During the
period of the deal we received 300,000 dollars from Davit Beglaryan.
Afterwards, we signed sales agreements with the persons introduced by
Davit Beglaryan,” Armen Tadevosyan said in his testimony.
He said that then they had difficulty paying the interest and asked
Davit Beglaryan to wait until they would finish construction and
receive the payments from residents. Davit Beglaryan agreed to this
proposal.
“I reiterate that the sales agreements signed with him were fictive,
it was done to secure the repayment of 300,000 dollars that we
borrowed from him on interest. Prior to signing the sales agreements I
informed Davit Beglaryan that we had prepayment agreements on the
apartments, and as soon as people made their final payments, the
apartments would be handed over to them with the right to ownership.
In other words, Davit Beglaryan knew from the very beginning that
preliminary agreements on apartments had been signed with other
people,” Armen Tadevosyan said.
In his testimony Davit Beglaryan said that he has never talked to
Armen Tadevosyan on lending him money on interest. “During our first
meeting with Armen he offered me to lend him money but I said I did
not lend money on interest, I don’t do such things. We agreed that he
sell me the vacant apartments for 260 USD per square meter, at the
same time we agreed that if buyers appear later, I would sell those
apartments to the persons they would designate, at a good price, 350
USD per square meter. I agreed to that offer, I paid them 300,000 US
dollars in several installments, and afterwards we signed 14 sales
agreements with Armen, and I registered the apartments in the names of
my relatives,” Beglaryan said in his testimony.
Armen Tadevosyan, however, insisted that he had pawned the apartments
with Beglaryan to borrow money on interest. He said had he wished to
sell them, he would not have sold them for 260 dollars per square
meter as Davit Beglaryan says because then there were a lot of buyers
who were ready to pay 450-500 dollars per square meter. Davit
Beglaryan has registered those apartments in the names of his
relatives and neighbors, namely Hermine Naghdalyan, her daughter Nare
Beglaryan, son Hrant Abajyan, Davit Beglaryan’s mother Ofelia
Stepanyan, Hermine Naghdalyan’s sister Gayane Naghdalyan, her mother
Rimik Naghdalyan, Beglaryan’s cousin Gagik Nazaryan, his wife Nare
Galstyan, Hermine Naghdalyan’s driver Grigor Harutiunyan, Davit
Beglaryan’s driver Hrachya Hovsepyan, his daughter Liana Hovsepyan,
Davit Beglaryan’s neighbors Gohar Saratikyan and Martik Tavakalyan.
The article was financed by Fund for Investigative Journalism.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
