Cyprus Property Forum for Buyers, Sellers & Investors

I'm new to the forum and am after some advise, hope someone can help!

Basically, 6 years ago my family and I bought a house in Cyprus. We hired a lawyer who seemed to be doing a good enough job. Little did we know!!

We now have a house, which we've been living in for the last 5 years, that hasn't got any building permits. The developer applied for the permits a long time ago, but ran into difficulty when 1 of the owners of the other parts of the plot (we have 1/5 of a larger plot) didn't like the plans.

Nethertheless, he carried on building.

The lawyer should have told us all about this before we handed over our money, but didn't. So we parted with our cash and are now up the creak!

We have made inroads with the other owners and they will sign the permits now, but time has gone by and the application is now out dated. Our developer is no-where to be seen.

Our new lawyer is advising us to sue the local council and the land registry for letting the building work continue and not stopping it when permits weren't granted. I'm not sure if this is the right route now that these new bills have been drafted. Will they help in any way? Is our lawyer right to go down the sueing route?

Is there anything else that can be done?

We are running out of cash and money now and need to get back to the UK asap. So any ideas would be gratefully received!!

Welcome to the forum Honest-H,

Is your new lawyer one of those on the list provided by the British High Commission in Nicosia - see http://www.news.cyprus-property-buyers. ... /id=002254 ?

Personally, I doubt very much if you will get anywhere by suing the council and/or the Land Registry. Many properties have been built here without the required permissions and permits and you are just one in a long line of victims I am afraid.

I don't believe there is a quick fix to your problem.

It is possible for a court to appoint someone to take over the duties of the property developer (if yours cannot be found). This person would then continue to process of getting the various permissions and permits, sub-dividing the land, arranging for the properties to be inspected, etc, etc - and eventually you will get Title.

If you have a fifth share of a larger plot, you maybe able to sell you share to one of the other shareholders.

Regarding the 'new' laws - they still have to be negotiated/agreed by parliament (the House of Representatives) and may change. The earlier draft laws allowed for permits to be extended by up to eight years, but I do not have full details of the revisions - these will appear in the Cyprus Gazette once they become law.

Regards,

Thanks for the reply.

Our new lawyer isn't listed in the article you provided. However, he has been recommended by several different people both Cypriot and British, so we are quite happy.

I will bring up his reasoning behind his thoughts at our next appointment.

Thanks again Nigel.