Cyprus property residence and passports: A recipe for disaster?

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By Antonis Loizou F.R.I.C.S. – Antonis Loizou & Associates Ltd – Real Estate Valuers & Estate Agents

Having a good system to attract foreign investors is one thing, but being provocative to others is another thing altogether.


 
The visas/passports scheme was originally thought of back in 2007 by the then government of Tassos Papadopoulos. This measure was there, but since the market/economy was booming, especially the real estate sector, no particular effort was undertaken to exploit this. Then Demetris Christofias’s government took over who seemed to be against the scheme during which the government reviewed around 15 cases, notwithstanding the hundreds of applications that piled up. Then the Anastasiades government went all for it, changing the incentives to become more and more attractive with relation to other countries and each time one competitor would come up with a more lax measure, Cyprus came up with a better one. The situation, as is now, provides the following picture.

Residency Programmes

Fast-Track Citizenship

 

 

This is positive, since we do not only offer the residency/passports to the investor, but also to his family, as well as for his/her spouse and parents.
We also have the unique non-requirement that the investors may not live in this country, whereas we might have investors with Cypriot/EU passports with the whole family coming to Cyprus.
Another provocative situation is the shop windows at hotels (see recent one at the Hilton in Nicosia) where a shop window hosted an EU passport with the slogan “buy/invest in property and get it”, adverts that are also seen in airport, etc.
With our “small” brains it is with a mathematical accuracy that the E.U. will put a stop to this some time soon (1-2 years’ time at best).
We have a golden goose and we will manage to kill it before the full beneficial results are evident.
It is not surprising that developers under these circumstances are running out of properties.

www.aloizou.com.cy
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