People thinking of buying Cyprus property can now refer to a website that provides independent information and advice.
Nigel Howarth started www.cyprus-property-buyers.com to help guide new property buyers.
A business consultant who previously lived and worked in Hong Kong, Australia, South Africa and the Netherlands, he bought his first bought property in Cyprus in 1992 and designed and built his current home outside Limassol in 2002. He is the Daily Telegraph’s mentor for Cyprus, features in a number of TV & radio programs about buying property and writes articles for two Cyprus-based English language magazines.
As well as his website and blog, he runs three Internet property forums answering questions from those who have bought or who are planning to buy property in Cyprus. The second edition of his critically acclaimed eBook “Buying a Home in Cyprus: A Practical Guide to Successful Real Estate Purchase” was published in 2006.
“Many British buyers make the mistake of believing that buying property in Cyprus is the same as buying property in the UK; nothing could be further from the truth! The laws are different, the ways of working are different and there isn’t a ‘nanny state’ to protect them. As a consequence, buyers need to be much more ‘street-wise’ before committing themselves otherwise they could end up with severe headaches,” he says.
“I hear horror stories of poorly built & poorly finished houses where the windows and doors don’t fit, cracks appear in the walls and properties are draughty, damp and musty with mould growing on the walls. In more serious cases properties have partly collapsed or have had their foundations undermined by burst water pipes or washed away by the winter rains,” added Mr. Howarth.
Other cases involve unscrupulous developers taking large sums of money from buyers and then skipping the country, or mortgaging the property to the bank leaving the buyers with little chance of ever getting their Title Deeds or finding a buyer if they wished to sell.
The good news is that many, if not all of these issues can be avoided if people take proper independent legal advice and take the time to check out the credentials of the developer and his past performance.
Perhaps his most significant success was saving one buyer more than £14,000 by making some simple changes to their contract.
