A case is coming up in the UK High Court against a Cypriot developer and Cypriot lawyers following the Cyprus government’s inability to resolve the existing backlog of thousands properties that have not had title deeds issued.
As a result, questions were raised last week in the House of Lords seeking a first round of punitive actions against Cyprus, despite government assurances to resolve the problem that has left hundreds if not thousands of Cypriot, British and other property owners at the mercy of crooked developers and colluding lawyers.
The landmark case could not have come at a worse time for Cyprus that has celebrated the legal victory against a British couple who have developed land in the Turkish-occupied north owned by a Greek Cypriot refugee and who are being forced to give up their assets in the U.K. as compensation.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham has asked the British government “what steps it will take to warn those contemplating buying property in Cyprus of the risk of losing their homes when developers who have retained title deeds in order to raise further loans default on those loans.”
Lord Jones has also called for steps to close down the U.K. offices of Cypriot companies selling property and ban the promotion of Cyprus property at exhibitions of overseas property held in the Britain. He wants to take further steps “to protect United Kingdom citizens from individuals who retain title deeds after properties in Cyprus have been bought.”
Finally, Lord Jones has asked the British government to “work with other European countries to urge the government of Cyprus to prosecute individuals who have retained title deeds after completion of property sales in Cyprus to United Kingdom and other European citizens.”
The UK Government is expected to reply to Lord Jones’ questions by June 25.
The Cyprus-property-buyers.com website, created by disgruntled property owners and victims of corrupt developers, is spearheading the campaign calling for a ban of all Cyprus property companies and to close their UK offices.
“Already suffering from the effects of the global economic crisis and a tarnished reputation, Cyprus received another body blow in the British House of Lords,” the website reported.
“Following last Tuesdays bombshell that the changes to property laws being planned by the Cyprus government will bring no relief to existing buyers, British peer Lord Jones of Cheltenham has called on the UK Government takes positive steps to protect British citizens,” it explained.
As the website noted, “overseas property sales are a major contributor to the island’s economy. After Spain and France, Cyprus used to be the most popular place for Britons seeking a place in the sun and it has been estimated that over 60,000 have bought property on the island. Although their appetite started to cool at the beginning of 2004, Britons still make up the majority of overseas property investors.”
“Closing down Cypriot companies in the UK and banning the promotion of Cyprus property at overseas property exhibitions will have disastrous consequences on property sales and the island’s economic well-being,” the website added.
When a developer goes bankrupt an individual without a title deed faces the risk of losing everything. The banks have the right to claim the collateral and property buyers will be left homeless and tens of thousands of pounds worse off.
The main bone of contention is that in October 2005, the Government said it was going to plug loopholes in the law, introduce fines, and provide property buyers what it called “an arsenal of weapons against unscrupulous property developers.”
In September 2007, the government said it was going to look at providing greater security to homebuyers by enabling their contracts of sale to take precedence over the developers’ mortgages.
In June 2008, Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis assured property buyers that newly proposed legislation to resolve problems in the property sector could be implemented by the end of the year.
In January 2009, the Interior Ministry gave its assurances to the British High Commissioner that it intended to introduce a Bill to address the title deed issue.
In April, Minister Sylikiotis qualified his earlier assurances to the High Commissioner by saying that the Bill will only apply to future cases.
What Are Cookies
As is common practice with almost all professional websites, our site uses cookies, which are tiny files that are downloaded to your device, to improve your experience.
This document describes what information they gather, how we use it and why we sometimes need to store these cookies. We will also share how you can prevent these cookies from being stored however this may downgrade or ‘break’ certain elements of the sites functionality.
How We Use Cookies
We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately, in most cases there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to the site. It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not, in case they are used to provide a service that you use.
The types of cookies used on this website can be classified into one of three categories:
- Strictly Necessary Cookies. These are essential in order to enable you to use certain features of the website, such as submitting forms on the website.
- Functionality Cookies.These are used to allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your language) and provide enhanced features to improve your web experience.
- Analytical / Navigation Cookies. These cookies enable the site to function correctly and are used to gather information about how visitors use the site. This information is used to compile reports and help us to improve the site. Cookies gather information in anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors came from and the pages they viewed.
Disabling Cookies
You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser’s “Help” option on how to do this). Be aware that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Therefore, it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.
Third Party Cookies
In some special cases we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. Our site uses [Google Analytics] which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solutions on the web for helping us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so that we can continue to produce engaging content. For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is Google’s analytics tool that helps our website to understand how visitors engage with their properties. It may use a set of cookies to collect information and report website usage statistics without personally identifying individual visitors to Google. The main cookie used by Google Analytics is the ‘__ga’ cookie.
In addition to reporting website usage statistics, Google Analytics can also be used, together with some of the advertising cookies, to help show more relevant ads on Google properties (like Google Search) and across the web and to measure interactions with the ads Google shows.
Learn more about Analytics cookies and privacy information.
Use of IP Addresses. An IP address is a numeric code that identifies your device on the Internet. We might use your IP address and browser type to help analyze usage patterns and diagnose problems on this website and to improve the service we offer to you. But without additional information your IP address does not identify you as an individual.
Your Choice. When you accessed this website, our cookies were sent to your web browser and stored on your device. By using our website, you agree to the use of cookies and similar technologies.
More Information
Hopefully the above information has clarified things for you. As it was previously mentioned, if you are not sure whether you want to allow the cookies or not, it is usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case it interacts with one of the features you use on our site. However, if you are still looking for more information, then feel free to contact us via email at [email protected]