Selling a property in Limassol

[virtualchrissywissy]

Hi
I am enquiring on behalf of my wife. Her Cypriot mother lives with us in North London. Herself and her brother wish to sell their apartment in Limassol. My wife will need to obtain Power of Attorney for herself to deal with this in Cyprus. I assume this will need to be notarised here and verified by the High Commission in London before sending on. She will also need to obtain POA for a solicitor to act on her behalf out there for the sale as it is highly unlikely she will be obtain time off from work to travel out there to deal with the sale. Then of course there will be Capital Gains Tax in both countries to consider afterwards. Hence I am writing in case anyone might be able to recommend a London based solicitor for handling this?

With many thanks

[Nigel Howarth]

Hi virtualchrissywissy and welcome to the forum.

Your mother-in-law and her brother need to appoint a lawyer in Cyprus to act as their PoAs.(They must not use a lawyer in London.)

The lawyer will draw up the PoA & sent it to your MiL & brother.

You MiL & brother will have to make an appointment the Cyprus High Commission in St. James’s Square London to get the unsigned PoAs Certified (see https://cyprusinuk.com/legalisation-of-documents/ ). As well as the unsigned PoAs they need to take their passports or her national ID Cards.

They will then sign the PoA in the presence of a Certifying Officer who will verify their identities & signatures.

MiL & brother will then send the certified PoAs to the lawyer in Cyprus. I suggest they send them by courier as getting snail mail here can take a long time. (We're still receiving Christmas cards that were sent from the UK in November.)

Louise Zambartas (who used to help out in this forum until pressure of work meant she had to leave) is on the list of lawyers provided by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and is a dually qualified English lawyer in Limassol. (I know Louise & her husband George, very well.) You can find contact details on the firms website at https://www.zambartaslawoffices.com/

As well as Capital Gains Tax, MiL & brother will need to make sure the ir payments to the communal fees on the apartment are up-to-date and any local taxes to the local 'council', sewerage charges, etc are paid. Plus there a further 0.4% tax to pay on the sale price.

Some other things to consider - advertising the apartment for sale, handling enquiries, arranging inspections for prospective buyers.

Regards,