Cyprus Property Forum for Buyers, Sellers & Investors

Hi Nigel,

My wife and I recieved a letter from our lawyer to tell us that he recieved a certificate of approval from the Land Registry on our behalf.
We have no title deeds yet ( we were told four years, two and a half years ago ), what does this certificate mean to us, the lawyer unfortunatly also works for the developer and is a bit slow in coming forwards.

Kind Regards,

Whirlybird 2.

It's good that your Certificate of Final Approval has been issued. What it means is that:

- Your development has been inspected by the planning authorities and conforms to the various permits issued for its construction.

- You can now live in your property legally (believe it or not it's actually illegal to occupy a building that has not been issued with this certificate).

What happens next?

Division Permit - If you have bought a property that forms part of a development, a Division Permit is sought. This enables the authorities to sub-divide the properties so that a Title Deed may be issued for each of the properties comprising the development.

A Certificate of Approval for the Division Permit - Once a Division Permit has been issued, a Certificate of Approval of the Division Permit is required.

Once a Certificate of Approval of the Division Permit has been issued, an application is made to the District Lands' Office for the registration of the property & issue of Title Deeds.

Cheers,

We own an individual villa on a small development and the original planning and building permits (that had been seen by our original lawyer) were found to be incorrect. (Our villa had been built on the wrong plot!!). When the Municipality came to check they realised this and an amended planning and building permit had to be obtained by our Developer. We have now been in the property over 6 years and although the amended permits have been obtained we still do not have our Certificate of Final Approval. The amended building permit was obtained last July but despite constant visits to our Developer he says that the Certificate has still not been received from the Municipality. I found with our Building Permit that a personal visit to the Building Department did seem to 'hurry its issue along". Is there any place that we can visit to try and expedite the issue of our Certificate of Final Approval?
Gill

Hello Gill and welcome to the forum.

It may be possible to chase up your Certificate of Final Approval - but the difficulty is knowing where to look.

First, the building Municipality/District Office/Town Planning Department is invited to check that everything is OK is OK with the building - so the initial request may be lurking somewhere there.

Once the the Municipality/District Office/Town Planning Department has given the OK, a Certificate of Final approval is sought from the Building Committee. The supervising engineer prepares a report and then submits it to the local Civil Engineer. The Civil Engineer then passes it to the Building Committee for their consideration. The report is the reviewed by the Building Committee, the minutes of the meeting are typed, corrected and approved; all the members of the Building Committee must sign the minutes of their meeting.

Assuming that everything is OK, it takes 6 - 18 months to issue a Certificate of Final Approval.

I'm in a similar position to yourself - I bought land and have the Title Deed. We then had a bungalow built to our own design and specification. I've been waiting several months for someone to come along and inspect the building (We took delivery nearly 6 years ago).

Regards,