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Cyprus Property Warning

Editorial
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I would like people to know how buying property in Cyprus can turn out to be a complete nightmare.

We have lived in Cyprus for over a year and want to sell up and move back to Scotland for personal reasons.

We bought a house off plan in 2003 and had a buyer who wanted to buy it, but discovered that on Nov 7 2003 the builder had taken a T500,000 mortgage on the land through a local bank and our contract was signed on the 21st November stating that there was no mortgages or any charges standing.

Our contract was registered on the 5th December and we were not advised of any outstanding mortgage. We would have been fools to have gone through with this sale if we had known. Since then in August 2004 a further T250,000 mortgage was registered, (we have a copy of this in black and white from Land Registry).

This is fraud in our eyes but in the eyes of some lawyers it is deemed to be a breach of contract.

Our lawyer sent the builder a letter but as usual he ignores this. All lawyers ever want to do is go to court and not much else, (this would take 3 years and the builder would probably suffer very little).

Lawyers do not seem to follow through after issuing a letter. We just want to sell the house but it is like we are sitting tenants who have paid a large sum of money over for the property but have no rights to it.

The builder wanted all his money last April for a house that wasn’t completed.

At this moment of time we can’t sell the house because the bank along with the builder has placed us in a position that selling is almost impossible.

Also the builder who is at the end of the day a lying cheating crook who acts like a mafia don, has been paid around T900,000 for the 6 bungalows (to our knowledge he has built 27 bungalows, although the mortgage is only on the 6).

The builder is still building houses in the area.

M.R., Paphos

Copyright © Cyprus Weekly July 7 2006

In Defence of the Whingeing Brit

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I read with interest the letter from a Scottish lady who left Cyprus, returned to Scotland, and regrets this move homeland for the reasons given and misses Cyprus and the benefits of living here (in her opinion).

I look at this issue from a different perspective: my experience of living on this island has obviously been very different from hers.

From the moment I bought my apartment in Paphos from one of the major developers my troubles began and have never stopped, two and a half years later.

I have been cheated, overcharged, lied to, shown no respect as an honest British woman, definitely not rich, and now a great deal poorer. I was very naive when I bought my apartment, but now I’ve ‘wised up’.

I have taken nothing from this country, have invested all my money into the property and have recently sold it at a loss, but was so relieved to do so; to escape from the expat scene and a huge concrete development lacking in any beauty whatsoever and with no green or garden to speak off.

The complex was built for us gullible British in mind, and the teething troubles experienced by the residents were endless. Basically once the developer has got you to sign on the dotted line, all decent customer service goes out of the window!

To sell my property (at a knock down price) just for peace of mind I paid a five per cent fee to the Property Agents, who were, I add, very good, £850 + VAT to my lawyer, who was closely connected with the developers, and just short of £1,800 to the developers for the cancellation fee, as I did not have the title deeds.

Am I a ‘whingeing Brit’ or have I justifiable reason to complain that there are very avaricious developers, lawyers, and so and so on who have made themselves millionaires at the expense of people such as myself?

To complain about the driving here is quite natural; the road casalties speak for themselves.

To complain about racism and human rights in this country may touch a raw nerve; nevertheless, Cyprus, in general, is a very racist country and treats immigrants extremely badly, especially if they have a different colour skin. There is little or no protection from the police and immigration bullies, when they pull someone off the streets because he has a dark skin.

Am I a ‘whingeing Brit’ or have I just stated what is obvious to many people, who choose to turn a blind eye or are too apathetic to want to say anything? And, of course, the immigrants themselves, are very scared – I now this for a fact.

The Cypriots’ general treatment of animals is callous and very often cruel and, of course, I could go on and on with different cases to prove this statement.

I end this letter with a plea to those who see injustice, inhumanity, cruelty to man or animal in this country, whatever your nationality, to speak up and try to help change things for the better. Cyprus is part of Europe now; but it’s hard to believe that the incidents of bad treatment to humans and animals can exist in a European country. It is shocking and has to change.

I am not a ‘whingeing Brit’ just a ‘caring Brit,’ and am, obviously, not going to stay here, but hope to make a difference before I leave this island for good.

A.S., Paphos

Copyright © Cyprus Mail December 11 2005

New Rights Planned for Cyprus Property Buyers

Editorial
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A bill being drafted by parliament seeks at long last to arm property buyers with an arsenal of weapons against unscrupulous property developers, though it remains to be seen how effective its application will be.

The move aims to address the thousands of cases where someone paying for a plot of land, an apartment or a house is deprived of the title deeds, which are in the possession of land developers. Thus buyers cannot reap the full benefits of ownership, including the right to transfer property paid for with their hard-earned cash.

Often, a house may be mortgaged several times over by the original owner (who might be a person other than the developer), leaving buyers at a legal dead-end. Thousands of people are currently in limbo due to this state of affairs.

To plug the loopholes in the legislation, the bill would make a sale agreement – provided buyers have met all financial obligations – equivalent to a mortgage, paving the way for the property to be listed with the Land Registry.

With a sale agreement in hand, buyers would be able to take legal recourse to demand “special execution,” i.e. a court order that the concerned property should be transferred in their name.

As things stand now, there is a two-month deadline in which buyers can submit a sale agreement to the Land Registry. But if this timeframe cannot be met because of delaying tactics by a developer, the buyer is left stranded. With the proposed amendment, the two-month deadline is abolished.

Moreover, the new law will be retroactive, meaning that people buying property in the past will also benefit.

Where a property, such as a plot of land, is not listed in the developer’s name, the bill makes it mandatory that the original sale agreement between the developer and the original owner be submitted, so that the end-buyer is not left out in the cold.

In addition, if due to poor management by the developer the property is put up for auction, the buyer will have auction rights. And in the event a house has been sold to multiple buyers (this has been known to happen), the first buyer to submit the sale agreement to the Land Registry will have preferential treatment.

More ominously for wayward Cyprus property developers, they would be compelled to provide buyers accurate and complete information about a property. This information must be given both pre-purchase as well as be put in writing on the sale agreement. Failure to comply is a criminal offence, punishable by jail time of up to one year and/or a £1,000 fine.

This last clause in particular has aggravated the Land Developers Association.

Loucas Christodoulides, general manager of Buy Sell estate agents, told the Cyprus Mail the new stricter regulations should have a positive impact on the market overall.

In principle, he said, doing away with transgressions should attract more foreign buyers, who may have been discouraged by these practices in Cyprus and therefore are drawn to invest in other neighbouring countries, such as Spain.

“Obviously, people coming in from abroad should get a fair deal,” he said.

“The initial reaction from the market is uncertain, but in the long term the proposed legislation should be a bonus.

“It all depends on whether the draft bill is watered down during the political process,” added Christodoulides.

He said that on the whole the market was doing well; compared to last year business was picking up in Limassol, Larnaca and Famagusta, while there was a slight drop in the rate of sales in the Paphos district.

Information and documents buyers will be entitled to:

  1. The name of the owner and all data relating to the natural and legal status of the immovable property.
  2. Building permit and all relevant terms and conditions.
  3. The existence of mortgages or any other rights in immovable property (claims arising from the legal position of the object in question).
  4. Architectural plans and schematics clearly indicating every section of the property, including area size.

Copyright © Cyprus Mail October 25 2005

Is there no Recourse against the Developers?

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My mother purchased a property from a property developer over three years ago, and, even though her contract had stated that completion would be 18 months, it is now only finally being completed.

Nothing new here, as this is Cyprus and we all know exactly what such contracts are worth.

My mother is a regular visitor to Cyprus and has been able to use her apartment though it is still a building site; she has always taken extreme care because of this fact. Recently they have finally started to lay the concrete that will be the road and the parking area, and in the stages of laying the concrete, have dug large holes, added spikes in the ground with no visible warning signs or cautionary measures, even though there are now a few families living on the complex.

My mother tripped over a spike that had not been there on the many trips back and forth to the apartment and fell against rough concrete. The end result was a severe cut to the palm of the hand (six stitches), a split upper lip (four stitches), loss of four front teeth and a bad cut on the leg, resulting in further stitches.

If the project had been completely finished as per contract none of this would have happened.

Also, an elderly woman owning one of the unfinished villas on the site has since died and will never realise her dream home, the family are now desperate to sell the property to pay the expenses of their mother’s death.

Now we are in the EU, surely there must be some channels of the legal system to protect buyers. There must surely be a health and safety act to consider, along with 101 other laws that have possibly been violated, not just in this case but in many others all around the island.

I love the island and have been here for some time now and married into a Cypriot family. But many people feel the same way and every year more and more people are purchasing ‘their dream property in the sun’. I just wonder were the dream ends and the nightmare begins?

It’s about time that builders and developers woke up and smelt the roses instead of making false promises and burying their heads in the sand!

Dave Roach, Paphos

Copyright © Cyprus Mail

Developers Dragging Their Feet on Title Deeds

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Three months after passing a law on title deeds, authorities are discovering that incentives given to developers to legitimise illegal constructions are not as appealing as had been hoped.

The law passed last March allowed owners of houses or apartments that violated building regulations to pay a certain amount to the Town Planning department and thus be eligible to the property’s title deed. Without the deed, owners cannot develop, mortgage, sell or transfer the property.

The philosophy of the bill, drafted by two DISY deputies, was that buyers should not be held hostage by developers’ reluctance to comply with building regulations. Therefore, if in six months’ time the developers failed to take action, buyers would be able to arrange matters themselves. The system was not perfect, as buyers would need to pay for building irregularities that were in many cases the developers’ fault.

The agenda behind the measure was two-fold: on the one hand, it was designed to rein in the construction bedlam in urban areas; on the other, the income generated by the government (optimistic estimates spoke of £40 million) would help toward plugging the spiralling public deficit.

But three months down the line, wayward Cyprus property developers are not taking the bait. Many have already received full payment on recent sales, and thus do not feel inclined to play by the rules.

Come September, buyers trapped in this vicious cycle can resolve their predicament, but it’s uncertain how many of them will be willing to pay out of their own pocket for mistakes made by the developers.

Authorities say the poor response to the measure can also be attributed to lack of awareness about the issue among the general public, even though the new law was given extensive media coverage at the time. A one-day seminar is therefore being arranged for June 16 to provide people with details.

Cityscapes are littered with glaring examples of houses blatantly flaunting building rules: boundaries between residences are often non-existent, add-ons are built without permission, and complex disputes between neighbours typically take too long to resolve, if at all.

The Town Planning department has in the past faced allegations of corruption, according to which department personnel were given sweeteners to approve building licences. This was one of the wrongs the new law hoped to remedy.

Copyright © Cyprus Mail

Beware when Buying Cyprus Property

Editorial
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Nigel Howarth’s letter in Cyprus Weekly (29 April 05) spurred me to write about my own experience in seeking suitable accommodation to buy in Cyprus.

Having lived here for two years now and, having heard horror stories as well as pleasant experiences from friends and acquaintances who, to a man, advised us to use a lawyer, we felt equipped to handle the situation.

We found a likely looking development and approached a Registered Estate Agent who arranged for us to view an apartment in the development, meet the developer and he also negotiated a ‘satisfactory’ price.

We asked for a draft contract to show to our lawyer.

The agent said that if we wanted to waste our money on lawyers, who after all only wanted to make trouble and feather their own nest, of course we can, but he would need a retainer to hold the property we had selected. He suggested £1,000, which we I paid by cheque.

To cut a long story short, when we went to a lawyer, recommended by our bank, it transpired that the developer had no planning permission or building permit and the land ownership document was questionable.

Our Registered Real Estate Agent assured us all was OK, because the developer had an assurance from the Mayor that planning permission would be granted and that a building permit would follow.

We decided that the situation was unsatisfactory and asked for the return of our retainer.

We then suffered an hour and a half tirade, consisting of warnings that we were breaking the law and threats at what might happen if we insisted on taking this course of action, all aimed at getting us to change our mind. We insisted on a refund of our deposit.

Now it was explained that we would have to pay for all the work the Registered Estate Agent had done on our behalf a well as the developer’s costs in preparing a draft contract.

The Agent’s charges (incl. VAT) for two site visits & five meetings was CY£575.

The Agent’s assessment of the developers costs, CY£300.

Our refund was CY£125.

An expensive lesson but, perhaps, considering the alternative, money well spent!

P.M.,
Limassol

Copyright © Cyprus Weekly May 13 2005

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