DECEMBER saw rise of 14 percent in the number of property sale contracts deposited at Land Registry offices across Cyprus compared to December 2018 with the annual total reaching 10,366; the highest number recorded since 2008 according to official figures published by the Department of Lands and Surveys.
Property sales – December 2019
During December a total of 910 contracts deposited compared to 800 in December 2018. Although the numbers in Paphos and Limassol fell by 4% and 2% respectively, they rose in the remaining three districts.
Property ales in Larnaca rose by 57%, while those in Famagusta and Nicosia (the capital) rose by 39% and 37% respectively.
Total Property Sale Contracts – 2018/2019 Comparison
| District | Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicosia | 2018 | 146 | 96 | 126 | 117 | 153 | 146 | 176 | 91 | 118 | 145 | 161 | 131 |
| 2019 | 161 | 194 | 131 | 169 | 213 | 145 | 174 | 103 | 137 | 183 | 208 | 180 | |
| Famagusta | 2018 | 48 | 52 | 40 | 52 | 79 | 61 | 61 | 50 | 45 | 57 | 47 | 48 |
| 2019 | 53 | 48 | 45 | 96 | 87 | 43 | 49 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 48 | 64 | |
| Larnaca | 2018 | 112 | 99 | 116 | 83 | 113 | 133 | 112 | 94 | 121 | 116 | 143 | 103 |
| 2019 | 114 | 125 | 118 | 140 | 173 | 102 | 157 | 93 | 102 | 160 | 122 | 162 | |
| Limassol | 2018 | 225 | 256 | 314 | 246 | 282 | 338 | 314 | 262 | 251 | 289 | 344 | 290 |
| 2019 | 251 | 256 | 287 | 428 | 546 | 219 | 286 | 196 | 240 | 228 | 296 | 284 | |
| Paphos | 2018 | 164 | 163 | 172 | 157 | 201 | 180 | 233 | 156 | 152 | 204 | 230 | 230 |
| 2019 | 187 | 211 | 185 | 224 | 404 | 205 | 230 | 166 | 173 | 192 | 233 | 220 | |
| Totals | 2018 | 695 | 666 | 768 | 655 | 828 | 858 | 896 | 653 | 687 | 811 | 925 | 800 |
| 2019 | 766 | 834 | 766 | 1057 | 1423 | 714 | 896 | 588 | 662 | 813 | 907 | 910 |
Annual sales
The total number of property sales during 2019 was the highest on record since 2008 (when 14,667 properties were sold) with sales rising in all districts.
In percentage terms, Nicosia saw the largest increase with sales up 44%. In equal second place were Larnaca and Paphos, where annual sales rose by 17%. Meanwhile sales in Limassol and Famagusta rose by 3% and 2% respectively.
Looking at the actual number of properties sold in each district, Limassol came in first place with the total number of properties sold reaching 3,517. Paphos came in second with 2,630 sales, with Nicosia in third place with 1,998 sales, Larnaca in fourth with 1,568 sales and finally Famagusta with 653 sales.
How long will it take to get your title deeds. We bought property in 2003 and took delivery in 2004 but could not get our title deeds We had delivery of 3.5 years stated in our contract of sale we contacted our lawyer Paul (pavlos) efthymiou and started legal action for breach of contract we finally got at court hearing on 30th of May 2016 the hearing finished on 3rd June 2016 after the developers lawyer for the defendant g&b hadjidemosthenous Ltd. did not turn up in court it took 3 months for the judge m a Matthews to hear the final arguments this was on 28th of September 2016 and reserved his decision by October 2017 the judge had not made a decision our lawyer then got a hearing at Cyprus supreme court on 24th of October 2017 to ask the court to give the judge a deadline to make a decision on our case the judge m a Matthews made is decision on 30th November 2017 in our favour and awarded us 238000 euros plus interest the developer offered us to pay us in instalments our lawyer said this is the best way forward in which we agreed first instalment was on 31st may 2018 which was 100.000 euros then pay us every month 50.000 euros until settlement of court judgement we got our second payment on July 2018 and then the next one on 30th October 2018 we then had enough money to buy a house in UK we got our last payment October 2019 which was 81840.40 euros Inc legal fees and extra interest payments for delay payments in the end we received 263716.78 euros this worked out GBP 225476.58 which is good news the developer sold our property for 199000 euros so worked out well for us our lawyer never asked us for money the all time the case took we paid no legal fees all came out of the interest awarded our friends thought we would lose our case if we did win we would never get our money some friends we had.
Ed: We purchased land in 1992 and received the deed in 1996. The delay was caused by the owner of the adjacent field claiming that a 5 metre strip of our land (and our neighbours) was his. This was resolved in our favour by the courts and we then got the deed. (There are people in Paphos who’ve been waiting for the deeds since the 1970s.)