AT the present time it can take as much as five or six years for a land survey to be carried out – according to StockWatch some 26,000 cases have piled up at Land Registry offices throughout Cyprus.
Initially the Minister appointed 60 permanent staff in the hope that this would help clear the backlog of applications. Since then he has outsourced some of the surveying work to private individuals.
However, the volume of outstanding work is massive, and the Ministry has been forced to think of more radical solutions to the problem.
Interior Minister, Neoclis Sylikiotis told StockWatch that: “The number of pending cases is increasing year by year”.
According to figures obtained by StockWatch, the number of cases outstanding at the end of September stood at 25,975.
“I have assigned to the Land Registry the elaboration of a proposal, which will address to foreign firms – without excluding individuals from the Cyprus market – who will win via tenders a large number of land survey cases”, Mr. Silikiotis noted.
“Towards this direction, I have personally informed SEK (Cyprus Workers’ Confederation) and PEO (Pancyprian Federation of Labour), stating as a main argument the time required for each case’, he said.
“I believe that it is not fair for the citizens to wait 5-6 years for a land survey”, he added.
Mr. Sylikiotis explained that local land surveyors did not have the necessary experience and know-how to deal with such a large number of cases in such a short period of time.
According to official figures, 14,405 cases were pending in January 2005; by 2010 this number had risen to 24,238.
Like everything else you could always pay for a government “approved” surveyor and jump the queue. It seems you can achieve most things in time (a lot of time) if you pay for it two or three times over.
I applied to the Paphos land registry and paid 30CYP for 5 “sticks” in 2006.
I phoned them several times every year and 2 years ago a team of surveyors arrived one Thursday with my application. They said they would be back on the Saturday. Four years on I was still waiting!!
I then personally attended the Land registry Office, to be told, there were cases over 10 years old. I was given a list of “approved” private surveyors, but was told that I would have to pay for their service and the payment made to them in 2006 would be surrendered.
I contacted a surveyor on the list and I had to complete another form on which she would apply to the LR for my file. She said it could take them several more months to give her the file.
The Minister says the staff don’t have the necessary experience and know-how. What a load of rubbish. It hardly takes a degree to work GPS. Bad management and poor commitment to doing a good job. And of course their overtime was cut, so a good excuse to go slow.
I have just had my land surveyed. Four men turned up. Two men did the work. Two men watched. This is Cyprus!