Title deeds to 60.000 home owners

Up to 60.000 households will have the right to apply as of October 31, 2004 to receive title deeds that had been blocked because of various infringements of the building code and part of the package of measures to raise money for the state.

The decree issued by Interior Minister Andreas Christou follows a House of Representatives bill amending the town planning law, aimed at resolving the chronic problem of thousands of homeowners being unable to obtain ownership deeds.

Through the law, the government hopes to raise at least CYP 200 mln in transfer fees as part of the drive to close the budget deficit and bring it in line with EU directives.

Thousands of homeowners who had never received title deeds due to violations such as alterations that had not been approved by the authorities and were not on the building plans at the time of approval are now eligible to apply.

In many cases, people constructed or made additions to their property that exceeded the coefficient or a dividing wall had been wrongly placed a foot closer to the main building.

The government is particularly concerned with cases where individual apartment owners have been deprived of their deeds due to minor irregularities in the bloc. In these cases the deeds for all the apartments were withheld and the owners were unable to transfer the property to relatives or children.

Private real estate investors and owners will have the right to apply to attain property titles for property that did not comply with the

Town Planning law requirements for properties already built after 1 December 1990.

The application for these rights may be carried out until July 31, 2005, with the three-member committee who will scrutinise the applications allowed 2 years to complete its investigations, or until July 2007 after which it will disband.

The government hopes to raise CYP 200 mln in Immovable Property Transfer Fees over the next 3 to 4 years.