Current Market in Limassol

[donotjudge]

Hello Nigel and team,

(Also hello to pantherman as i know you are extremely active ahah)

After obtaining the land (with the help of you guys) and sending out 3 notices to sell to the co-owners, i now wish to sell, but have a couple questions.

Current situation is as follows,

I own 50%, the other 50% is split within the same family, by 3. My solicitor sent out notices to sell and none of them got back to us. I currently have two options:
Option 1,
Sell as an undivided share, and have the land registry send its own letters, and then sale of the land. If possible, adding a division agreement to the sale. This option would benefit me most as i prefer to sell the land sooner than later.

Option 2,
Attempting to get the co-owners consent on dividing, and then proceeding with the division.

Also i could get the division agreement and then sell but i honestly do not want to wait any longer as for personal reasons i would prefer to have liquid cash right now, and even if i waited, no guarantee the co-owners will conesnt to division. Even if so, how would i go about finding a buyer for this? Is there any estate agent that has experience in large land sales or such? Or certain construction companies that may be interested?

So to

P.S. 6 months has long passed since the transfer of the land (CGT instead of Income Tax)

Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

Edit.
Is there any idea how much it would cost to divide the land into individual plots/or divide it into 2. Land is in total 14000m2 my half is 50%. And how long it may take to 1. get the division agreement, 2. if needed, divided? Thank you

[Nigel Howarth]

Hi donotjudge

If I were in your position (which I'm not) I'd get the land divided. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. Effectively what you currently own is 50% of everything. I.e., if you divided the whole plot into 1cm squares, you would own one half of each and every one of those 1cm squares.

2. Lets say the other co-owners each built a house on the plot. They would each own a quarter of your house and you would own a a half of each of their houses.

There's a government document that goes into greater detail that you can find at Problems Arising from Co-Ownership.

The best way to avoid problems is to subdivide the land into 2 plots. This will result in a completely separate Title Deed being issued for your plot. It will have fixed boundaries and you would own 100% of it. This should also make it much easier for you to sell the land.

How long will it take? It's impossible to say. You can read about the process on page 30 of the Department of Lands & Surveys Citizens Charter.

As for how much it will cost, you can find what the Land Registry charges are likely to be at Land Registry Fees and Charges.

Regards,

[donotjudge]

Thank you for your reply Nigel.

I understand the reasoning behind this, but my solicitor mentioned that it may take up to 5 years if co-owners are not on board with the division. And even if they are, she mentioned it would sill take up to/over a year.

Rather than waiting, i was wondering if it would make sense to sell the land at a discounted price? (my valuation says 10% loss due to undivided share). Valuation also says demand would be high and marketability is high.

I am just afraid of waiting the 5 years if i'm completely honest.

[Pantheman]

Is this land agricultural or residential?

If agricultural you cannot subdivide into plots. If residential then you need the appropriate planning and build permits, then you may be looking at about 25k / plot to subdivide and add utilities, roads, greed area etc.

Anything you do planning wise, you'll need their signatures. How about sketching a subdivision and approaching them to discuss a distribution agreement?

As co-owners they have the OPTION to buy your share first and you'll need their permission to sell otherwise you'll need to advertise it in two daily news papers for a period of 60 days and if no one comes forward you can make the transfer.

Why do they refuse the separation? Assuming you have asked them??

Does it have road access??

[donotjudge]

Hi Pan, thank you for your reply.

The land is residential, and it seems very expensive to divide that way if i'm being honest. I might not go for division to plots but rather a division into two 100% title deeds.

We sent them the the offer to purchase the land to which none of them replied.

My solicitor informed me that the next step would be to get them to sign a co-owners consent, to which i hope works out positively without any problems.

Do you know if it would help if i got their consent, we wrote up a division agreement, and i sold the land with the agreement in place? Would there be buyers? I will send the land details to you from PM so you can have a look at the details of the land if you wish to do so. But in summary, in the valuation it says it has access to 2 roads, one being a main one, and has access to utilities.