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By George Mouskides
At an event held on 24 October, co-organised by KSIA and the Technical Chamber of Cyprus (ETEK), the main message extracted is reflected in the title of this article.
As we will try to prove below, this is not merely a figure of speech.
High-ranking state officials and municipality officials engaged in real estate were among the main speakers of the event.
The first clear message extracted from statements made by the speakers was that the buyer is at risk when they buy property for which there is no title deed.
Filing a proof of purchase document with the Land Registry in cases where there is no title deed, ensures that the seller cannot resell the same property to a third party.
It also allows the buyer to apply to a Court of Law and demand the transfer of the property to his name if the seller does not comply with the terms of the contract.
But that implies that there is a pre-existing title deed.
If the seller (developer, in the case of new properties) fails or does not want to issue a title, then the buyer will be in trouble. If there were irregularities in the construction process, it is possible that the title deed may never be issued.
A second message is that no property (apartment, house, shop, office) can be inhabited or used unless a final approval certificate is issued. That is what the law is plainly saying.
But who complies with this law?
Who waits for one to two years, for the certificate to be issued, before moving into the property? And, at the end of the day, what will the cost be?
A third message was that most contracts signed between land developers and buyers contain prohibitive clauses which are in violation of the consumer protection law.
All of the problems mentioned above could be solved in a simple way, as they all have the same starting point.
This starting point is none other than the delay in issuing a final approval certificate as soon as a construction is completed.
All of the above would be resolved, as both the certificate and the title deed will be issued at the time of delivery of the property to the buyer, that is to say, upon delivery of the key the title deed will also be presented.
This could easily be achieved if checks carried out by the various departments begin once the shell of the construction is completed.
The Town Planning Department, the Land Registry, Municipalities and districts, should get together with ETEK and identify solutions, bring about the necessary changes required by legislation, so we can solve this very serious problem.
Cyprus has been seriously exposed both to the House of Lords and to the European Parliament for unacceptable delays in issuing titles.
Unfortunately, we find ourselves today in the same spot we were 10 years ago.
Concluding, until the above problem is corrected, and taking into consideration that buying real estate purchase is usually the biggest investment in a person’s life, a buyer should consult experts before proceeding with such a purchase.
And experts, of course, are none other than professional real estate brokers, for most issues, and engineers for some technical issues. With a professional real estate agent as a consultant, the risks we mentioned above are reduced to a minimum in the case where there is no title deed and are nullified where there is one.
