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3rd December 2024
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EC asks Cyprus to comply fully with EU law

EC asks Cyprus to comply fully with EU consumer protection lawTHE EUROPEAN Commission on 25 July 2019 decided to send an additional letter of formal notice to Cyprus because their national rules do not comply with EU law on unfair commercial practices (Directive 2005/29/EC) and unfair contract terms (Unfair Contract Terms Directive, Council Directive 93/13/EEC).

The Commission opened this infringement case in 2013 based on a series of complaints from EU citizens who bought real estate in Cyprus. Real estate developers, banks and lawyers had allegedly omitted to inform buyers about pre-existing mortgages when selling immovable properties.

The Commission found that the Cypriot authorities were not effectively enforcing neither the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive nor the Unfair Contract Terms Directive. The Commission has been in contact with the Cypriot authorities, which responded positively to several of the concerns raised by the Commission on the transposition and implementation of the two directives. However, the matter has not been resolved so far.

Cyprus now has two months to reply to the arguments raised by the Commission. Otherwise, the Commission may decide to send a reasoned opinion to the Cypriot authorities.

Further reading

July infringements package: key decisions

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14 COMMENTS

  1. Let’s not make this about Brexit Don Everett. I haven’t seen any positive action from Westminster to help British Citizens caught up in this mess. And, Westminster formed a MP Action Group about 8 years ago to look at it.. it fizzled out like a damp firework. Surprising since the UK has a ‘special’ relationship with Cyprus and are linked via the Commonwealth.

  2. It does strike me as extremely misleading by both the buyer and the sellers solicitors that the buyer of property is not informed that the very property/development that is being purchased has outstanding debt against it!, in the u.k. any such debts owed by the seller developers be paid up by the sellers to ensure that the purchasers do not end up being the loser financially when purchasing properties.

    It in the duty of the legal representatives of both buyer and sellers to look after the financial interests of each of the parties involved in the transaction also to ensure that no financial misleading has been carried out by either parties.

    Any misleading financial mis selling could and is usually seen as fraud and carries severe criminal penalties in most countries, so the question needs to be asked how is it that dodgy developers in Cyprus seam to continually get away with committing fraud on what can only be described as wholesale fraud and then they put there construction company into liquidation whilst stripping it of all and any financial assets and they don’t get taken to task for what they have done to a lot of people who now have absolute bigger all to call there own but yet this now defunct companies owners are living a life of luxury when the official receiver should move in and strip them of all of the financial assets that they have and repay it to those that have in most lost there life savings and or pension pots!.

    Any insolvency practitioner must sleep very badly at night knowing that they have not done there jobs properly just so that there fellow Cypriot builder friends can live it up.

  3. @Andrew, joining the EU was by no means a way or guarantee of protection from Turkeys interest in the island and now the island’s natural resources….but look at things this way too, for someone who fled the north due to the events of 74 lost everything home land etc. let alone loved ones, only to come south work a life time and end up being ripped off by a combination of developer/ROC/lawyers is a double whammy not easy to get over….

  4. That’s the second formal complaint we’ve sent you! If you keep ignoring us we “may” consider sending a reasoned opinion! ?

  5. In a Financial Mirror article dated 7-13 Dec 2011, entitled The Cyprus Property Titanic, which addressed the Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis,I wrote:

    “Why has there been such reluctance to implement the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive which very few people in Cyprus knew about and which at one stage the government was stating wrongly does not apply to immovable property? The CCPS took quite some time to address the issue but a significant number of buyers have lodged complaints with the CCPS under the Directive. It is understood that complainants may well going on to lodge complaints against Cyprus at the European Court of Human Rights. Such has been the avalanche of complaints to MEPs from aggrieved constituents that the European Commission is also investigating more seriously, having previously been fobbed off by blandishments and fake assurances from the Cyprus government.

    “Will the banks already carrying mortgages on properties with defective deeds under your new scheme take a hit now that market values are dropping? Isn’t the very act of issuing a less than perfect Title Deed a breach of the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive? Do you believe that buyers will be more or less likely to buy in Cyprus now?”

    Under the well-practised Cyprus Law of Procrastination, there are recognised the following degrees of deliberate delay: slow, very slow, dead slow, stop, reverse, infinite denial.

  6. Nice to see the thumbscrew being tightened some more. Other posters are saying Cyprus won’t comply. Oh yes they will. It may take a little longer but they’re beginning to realise they’re in deep dung and need world opinion to change which it will and actually is. An awful lot of people are getting their deeds, others will too.

  7. Since 2013!!! Another reason why the UK should leave this inefficient bunch. What hopes for the Pissouri victims.

  8. Oh please, let’s hope they start turning the thumb-screw on these practices.
    It’s unpaid loans that have held-up our Title for 30 years, any longer and there’ll be no-one to give it to; or perhaps that’s the idea….

  9. Not b4 Time EU…..BUT, will Cyprus Authorities comply?

    And If so how Quickly? I doubt anything like 2 months!!

    Cyprus not known for speedy responses?

    We’ve most of us known for Years about the antics of the past, and how reluctant the appropriate departments have continued to be to rectify.

    We should ASK should monitor and PROBE/SEE what happens?

    Just feel sorry for all those, MANY, who have fallen foul of all this.

  10. Europe has forced Cyprus to be on it’s current state. Turkey is invading the seas of Cyprus EEZ
    With military threats EU is not taking action in a positive way just words.
    Forced to take people’s savings. EU has double standards and is hypocritical.
    I have always respected the EU but now I’m we seeing it’s true colours?

  11. Protection for the nefarious activities of the kumbaros comes well before adhering to EU Law.

  12. I have lived in my house four 14 years and the land register has lied 4 over 10 years about my boundary they will not issue my certificates this is against the law but they still get away with it as you know Cyprus is full of corruption.

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