Cyprus' leading on-line resource for home buyers & real estate investors -

28th March 2024
Cyprus Property News logo
HomeNewsPerdikis to raise property law deficiencies in House

Perdikis to raise property law deficiencies in House

Green Party MP, George Perdikis

GREEN Party MP, George Perdikis is to question the House over property legislation which leaves hundreds of home-owners in Coral Bay unprotected.

The matter concerns recent changes in the law which would enable the release of Title Deeds through enforcing an amnesty on building irregularities which had hitherto blocked issue of the ownership documents.

But Peyia Councillor, Linda Leblanc, ascertained this week from the House that none of the raft of laws covers leasehold properties.

According to Leblanc, Land Registry is refusing to accept deposits of Contract of Sales for a number of leasehold properties in what is known as Plot One in Coral Bay.

“Perdikis will put a question to the House on the lack of legislation for the 155 residents in Plot One in coming weeks,” Leblanc told The Cyprus Weekly.

Current laws could scupper property owners’ chances of obtaining their title deeds.

“The Sale of Land Law helps to protect the rights of property purchasers as depositing a contract of sale at the Land Registry effectively prevents the vendor from selling the property in question to someone else or changing his mind about the sale,” Leblanc explained.

“A new law entitled ‘The Sale of Immovable Property (Specific Performance)’ was approved by Parliament and came into force on July 29, 2011. Any contracts of sale that were signed and that have not been lodged at the Land Registry may be filed within six months from the July 29, 2011.

The deadline to lodge any contracts is January 29 this year. For example, if a buyer signed a contract of sale in 2005 but failed to file it at the Land Registry, there has now been a six-month window of opportunity to do so.

But this does not apply to leasehold properties so where does that leave all of these home owners?”

Leblanc added that the main stakeholders in the issue would be holding a round table meeting soon to try to thrash out problems.

Land Registry, development manager, Harbour Shore Estates (HSE), Peyia Municipality and The Coral Bay Association are the key players in a decades-old deadlock over a number of property issues in Plot One.

RELATED ARTICLES

3 COMMENTS

  1. @Mike. Good overall comment but I really don’t think past ‘occupiers’ can fairly be blamed for the Title Deeds etc rot that we have today. After all, the Republic of Cyprus has had over 50 years to radically change anything inherited it did not like! It has not done so. Other former British colonies, e.g. Singapore which got its independence in 1960 same as Cyprus did, have not been so timid. Singapore is also a small island state with still a relatively small population but on many (but not all) parameters – legal, economic, education, civil society etc – it has shot ahead compared with Cyprus. It has become an actual regional financial, business and IT services hub whereas Cyprus just talks about it. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

  2. Pete

    I do not think you are being too cynical but I also do not believe that is the only reason. Incompetence and an abject failure to adopt a common and widespread system of conveyance due on the one hand what you have suggested and on the other the web of complex legislation that has been enacted over the centuries which is now plainly and obviously not fit for purpose in a modern world with free movement of people with a choice and means.

    I am Cypriot, but am the first to admit our ‘system’ remains archaic and firmly embedded in the 1800’s with the addition of ‘sticking plaster’ amendments which have done nothing except complicate matters and created further opportunity for deceit and fraud. Too many occupying cultures have had a hand in formulating our laws and we now have an abomination of them all.

    It was far easier when you bought a piece of land that stretched from the olive tree to the carob tree then to the stone terrace and onto the goat herders hut then back to the olive tree.

  3. Why is it that nothing is ever done right first time? Could the answer be that it’s all done by lawyers therefore they get paid twice? Or is that just me being cynical?

Comments are closed.

Top Stories

Sign up to receive our free newsletter

We handle your data responsibly, find more about our privacy policy

Cyprus property transfer fees

Elsewhere in Cyprus Property News

EUR - Euro Member Countries
GBP
1.1684
RUB
0.0101
CNY
0.1285
CHF
1.0436

Property capital gains tax (CGT) calculator