Dreaded title deeds!

[dizzielizzie]

Hi Nigel,

Thank you for your previous help in answering our questions. We have had our villa 2 years and after reading all the scary stories would like to go about getting our title deeds before things go horribly wrong. I have e mailed my builder twice on the subject also asking if he has the certificate of final approval (we think he may have this though, some council officials came to the property in the Spring and had a brief look around). Rather than mess about would you suggest we go ahead and use our solicitor to act on our behalf to apply for them for us, and go through the courts if neccessary. We have a well respected solicitor in Larnaca who writes many articles for various magazines and websites (including yours), we trust him totally. We would like to move out there but do not want to sell our house in the UK for fear of losing everything we own, before we have the title to the property.

Kind Regards
Lizzie

[Nigel Howarth]

Hi Lizzie,

If you've only had the property for 2 years, I doubt very much that you'll be getting your Title Deeds soon.

You may have read that there are currently around 120,000 properties waiting for their Title Deeds and the Interior Minister has plans to speed things up. But even so you're probably looking at another 5 or 6 years before they are available.

I've met the lawyer in Larnaca a couple of times - I'm sure he'll do his best for you. But it is a bit premature to get him on the case.

Regards,