Europe ruling on Cyprus villa row

Meletios Apostolides said his family was uprooted from the land in 1974

A legal battle over a British couple's retirement home in Cyprus has been sent to the European Court of Justice.

David and Linda Orams, of Hove, Sussex, won a High Court ruling last year which said they could keep a villa they built in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus.

But landowner Meletios Apostolides contested that decision, and an appeal hearing was held in London this week.

Lawyers for both parties have submitted questions concerning the case, for referral to the court in Luxembourg.

Mr Apostolides claimed his family owned the land at Lapithos in the 1970s, and that they only left because of a Turkish invasion in the northern part of Cyprus in 1974.

David and Linda Orams celebrated a High Court victory last September

Mr and Mrs Orams, aged 62 and 60, used their £160,000 retirement funds to buy the plot through the land registry system of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

But after moving into the villa in 2003, they were served with an ownership claim by Mr Apostolides.

He won his case at the District Court of Nicosia - in Greek-controlled Cyprus - but the judgment was ruled unenforceable in the Turkish part of the island and then in the UK.

Three judges, sitting at the Appeal court on Tuesday, have now referred the case to the European Court of Justice.

Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice, said: "The principal issues in the case affect some 1,400 people who claim to own houses in northern Cyprus and also Greek Cypriots who lay rival claims to ownership of these houses."