A woman convicted of fraud received a prison sentence, and a court voided the transaction through which home buyers' money was transferred. Yet the victims still cannot recover their millions. For nearly two years, they have been trying to enforce court rulings but, they say, have hit a legal dead end. Why the money remains with a third party and no one can collect it, reports infohub.kz.
The story began in 2022. FloraCityStroy was selling apartments in future residential complexes Lantana and Flora in the foothills of Almaty. Buyers were shown attractive floor plans, promised a quick start of construction, and offered to purchase housing at a favorable price before the project's completion. But construction never started. As the court later established, the company had neither land plots nor the necessary construction permits. In June 2024, the director of the LLP, Zhuldyz Kaishubayeva, was found guilty of fraud. The court sentenced her to six years and eight months in prison and ordered her to compensate 34 victims.
During the trial, it emerged that Kaishubayeva had used part of the home buyers' money to purchase a land plot of more than three hectares in the Karagaily microdistrict. According to civil case materials, in September 2022 she signed a preliminary purchase agreement for a land plot of more than three hectares in Karagaily. The transaction value was 756 million tenge. The seller was Talgat Teltayev, acting under a power of attorney from the land owner, Amirlan Sabalakov. Later, the parties signed a deposit agreement under which 118 million tenge was transferred to the seller. The victims believe this money came from the home buyers. After the guilty verdict, the claimants took the matter to civil court. They sought to have the preliminary land purchase agreement and the deposit agreement declared invalid. The court granted their claim. Now, it would seem, the money should have been returned. But this is where the story hit a dead end.
After the court voided the deal between Zhuldyz Kaishubayeva and Talgat Teltayev, the victims hoped the money paid by Kaishubayeva for the land would be recovered and used to compensate them. But it proved not so simple. According to the claimants, formally only Kaishubayeva can demand the money back from Teltayev, since she was the party to the contract. The victims were not parties to that deal, so they cannot collect the money on their own. To address the issue, the claimants tried other legal avenues. A private bailiff seized the funds that were due to be returned to Kaishubayeva after the deal was voided. Then the victims applied to the Nauryzbay, Medeu, and Alatau district courts to change the method of enforcing the ruling. They wanted to be able to collect the money directly from Teltayev, without waiting for the convict to act. But all three courts refused. An attempt to use the mechanism of accounts receivable also failed. "We were told that this mechanism applies to commercial debts. In our case, it's about home buyers' money that Kaishubayeva transferred via promissory notes. So that avenue is closed to us," said victim Anna. After that, the claimants turned to the Almaty prosecutor's office and the General Prosecutor's Office. "We tried several times to get a prosecutor involved in the court hearings. We wrote appeals to the Almaty prosecutor's office and the General Prosecutor's Office. But we only got formal replies. No one even tried to look into the situation."
The main problem, according to the claimants, is that the money is not with Kaishubayeva but with Teltayev. However, only the party to the deal—Kaishubayeva herself—has the right to demand its return under the court order. And she, the victims say, has no intention of doing so. "Zhuldyz openly says she will not restore the transaction to its original state, will not get a writ of execution, and will not return our money. Teltayev responds, 'I have the money, but Kaishubayeva is not demanding it from me.' So for almost two years, we have been dependent on a person the court convicted of fraud," Anna said. The victims do not rule out collusion between the parties, but they have no evidence.
We asked lawyer Daniyar Baigabatov to assess the situation. After reviewing the court rulings and case materials, he concluded that the problem may not lie in the legislation but in the legal strategy chosen. "I was not involved in this case, so I can only speak based on the documents. In my view, it's not a gap in the law but in its application. Perhaps the defense strategy was not the most effective," the lawyer said. In his opinion, having the preliminary agreement declared void may have complicated further recovery. "If the deal had been completed and the plot registered in Kaishubayeva's name, then the land could have been sold as part of the court sentence enforcement. Now it's the opposite—the victims' situation has only worsened," Baigabatov said. He noted that he did not represent any of the parties and drew his conclusions solely from documents provided by the editorial team.
The victims themselves disagree with that assessment and believe they face a systemic problem. According to them, the state recognized them as victims, issued a guilty verdict, ordered the convict to compensate them, and voided the transaction through which the money was diverted. Yet they still see no mechanism to actually recover these funds. "So the state recognized our right but did not ensure its realization. For almost two years, we have been in a situation where the fraudster does not comply with court rulings, and we cannot independently recover the money from a third party. We are in a real legal dead end," victim Anna said. As the victims continue to seek enforcement of the court decisions, they have still not received an answer to the main question: how to recover the 118 million tenge that, in their view, were diverted from home buyers' funds.