Buying a flat from a friend in cyprus

[troystevenson]

Hi,

my mother currently lives in a 2bdrm flat in Cyprus which belongs to her friend who charges her an annual rent.

He is planning to emigrate and is offering to sell the property at a cut down price to me and my mother. The deeds are currently in his name.

He says I will need to pay the property transfer taxes which is fine and unknown at the moment. What I would like to know is whether I need to engage with any solicitors or seek any representation. I live in London and will be completing the purchase in June.

He says I will just need to pay him the agreed price and get the deeds registered in my name and pay the taxes. Is it as simple as that and can this be achieved in a week??

thanks in advance.

[Nigel Howarth]

Hi troy and welcome to the forum.

I hope you have read the text in red at the top of the page

It is best that you engage the services of an independent lawyer to check that everything is OK with the Title (i.e. there are no mortgages or other claims lodged against it).

The vendor will have to pay any Capital Gains Tax resulting from the sale and get a tax clearance certificate from the Inland Revenue. The transfer process is quite straightforward and as the deed for the property is available, it should only take a few minutes at the Land Registry (but the checks will take a bit longer - 3 or 4 days depending on the Land Registry's workload).

You can read about the transfer process and the documents that are needed on pages 45 & 46 of the Department of Lands & Surveys Citizens Charter - a copy of which you can get from my website at http://news.cyprus-property-buyers.com/ ... harter.pdf

You may also want to check out my property buying checklist - http://cdn.cyprus-property-buyers.com/w ... cklist.pdf

Finally (nearly), the British High Commission in Nicosia publishes a list of lawyers that you can find at http://ukincyprus.fco.gov.uk/resources/ ... yers-south

Finally, the Department of Lands & Surveys has an on-line calculator that will give you an idea of the Property Transfer Fees. You can find this at http://www.moi.gov.cy/moi/dls/dls.nsf/d ... n?openform

Regards,

[troystevenson]

Thanks very much for your response.