Deceived Citizens Occupy Half-Built Residential Building in Downtown Yerevan

Two days ago, citizens who've obtained preliminary real estate agreement from Narek-Davit LLC over apartments in newly constructed residential buildings on Pushkin 51/1 in downtown Yerevan broke down the building's front door and moved in into the half-built apartments. The reason they resorted to such extreme measures is the fear that the development company, having lost a different case in court, will be unable to provide them with apartments.

Speaking to Epress.am reporters on November 5, the residents said they signed contracts with “Narek-Davit” in 2007.Company director Gagik Papoyan was subsequently convicted of large-scale extortion for selling apartments in another building to multiple buyers. Following Papoyan's conviction, construction on Pushkin street stopped.

As stated by the citizens, only after the criminal proceedings did they find out that the land lot on which the building was being constructed belonged to entrepreneur Andranik Khaloyan. “Now Khaloyan offers to first privatize the building and only then sign new contracts with the residents. How do we know whether or not [he will keep his word]? Andranik Khaloyan does not consider himself the legal successor of ‘Narek-Davit.’ He’s appeared out of thin air and claims the lot is his property. He’ll obviously refuse to recognize our contracts since he has nothing to do with [the development company],” protester Susanna Balayan said.

Andranik Khaloyan, whom Epress.am contacted for a comment, said he has the right to sell the apartments, but does not do so only out of solidarity with the citizens, "solely for humanitarian reasons." According to the businessman, he also suffered from Papoyan's fraudulent actions who had no right to sell those apartments in the first place since he did not own them. “I own both this land and this building. Papoyan [illegally] constructed a building on my territory and he deceived those people selling them those apartments. I'm also a victim here.”

The citizens, however, showed cadastre documents to our reporters, according to which, the disputed land lot was purchased nearly five years after building construction began. Khaloyan claims these documents “are fake.”

“We tried to appeal to the Municipality in order to resolve the issue. However, they refuse to accept our applications when they see we are residents of that specific building. Khaloyan was a member of the city Council of Elders; that's when he drew up the papers,” resident Robert Karapetyan noted.

The protesters added that in the past they have tried fruitlessly to move into the apartments. People have been taking turns keeping round-the-clock watch at a few of the apartments after breaking into the building two days ago. 

Armenian law enforcement officials tried on Thursday to remove the people from the area. “We told them we would not leave, that we'd start a hunger strike, a sit-in, whatever it took to stay here. They left when they saw we were not going to change our mind,” Susanna Balayan said. The woman, however, is confident security forces will soon return and demand again that the residents leave.