With regards to property cheats, on your Letters page the problem stems way before this.
Firstly you need your property developer, who comes along with ‘Horse, Saddle and Spurs’. He decides to build, puts down the base for columns and his architects tell him they are wrong.
He doesn’t rectify this problem and so the architects walk off the job. The developer hires an engineer and pays him a backhander to get the development signed off.
Then it gets better as the local Town Hall notes certain faults in construction and informs building control in Larnaca, voicing the same concerns.
They pass the situation on ETEK in Nicosia, and just when we think that we are getting somewhere by arranging an appointment with them and that the problem would finally be solved, we are told that they have no power and that they can only advise developers.
Yes it’s true, EU countries have the law in place, even in the UK to avoid this happening. But in Cyprus we presume it’s not what you know, but WHO!!!
Surely Cyprus being in the EU needs an urgent revamp of the law governing planning, building control, issuing of title deeds, (we have been waiting 6 years for Title Deeds). All the above needs urgently to be brought to line.
F. P. Sidonio, Larnaca
Copyright © Cyprus Weekly September 15 2006