Cyprus-Forum.com

[josephinekelly]

Cautionary advice. Don't think because you have engaged the services of a Cypriot lawyer that you are home and dry. I am not going to go into what happened to us but if I could give advice, especially to those who are going into houses which are partially or not yet built:

Actually the procedure is much the same as here.

1 Town Planning Permission is essential. Wait for this before you sign anything. GET AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF WHAT IT SAYS.

2 Building permission (equivalent to our building regs). This will make sure your property is a legal building. Again HAVE IT TRANSLATED.

3 Final Inspection certificate can then be obtained. Your property is at least then saleable. Press for your title deeds.

4 If you have bought the land separately, then make sure title deeds include the property on the land. If not then you must get the deeds updated legally through a solicitor to show the property and land together.

We fell at the first hurdle. Our solicitor said we had been granted planning permission, so we signed. Later on translation, we found it was only for one storey, so at present we are trying to gain permission for this. The Building Permit was not even applied for by the builder
As to the rest, a distant dream at present. Still trying for permanent electricity.

We feel a decent solicitor or a caring estate agent would have spared us all this. So step number one is to go to a solicitor who is above board. We now find ours is acting for the builder also. Easier said than done to find a trustworthy one perhaps.

[nhowarth]

Hi Josephine,

I'm sorry to hear that you're having problems - and I appreciate that the following is probably too late in your case. But the British High Commission in Nicosia has recently revised it's list of lawyers who are able to offer advice in English.

The British High Commission has kindly allowed me to publish that list on my website where you can find it in the Download Area along with other useful bits of information.

I'm afraid that you'll not be able to get a permanent electricity supply until you have your building permit. Once you have it, the Electricity Authority will carry out an earth leakage test on your property. Assuming that's OK, they'll connect you to the mains supply. (Incidentally, if you have any dimmer switches, swap them for normal switches until after the EAs completed the earth leakage test).

I'm afraid that problems like yours are very common. Finding honest, trustworthy people can be difficult if you don't know your way around.

Regards,