On 20 October 2006 a criminal code amendment relating to property came into effect. Under the amendment, buying, selling, renting, promoting or mortgaging a property without the permission of the owner (the person whose ownership is registered with the Republic of Cyprus Land Registry, including Greek Cypriots displaced from northern Cyprus in 1974), is a criminal offence. This also applies to agreeing to sell, buy or rent a property without the owner’s permission. The maximum prison sentence is seven years. Furthermore, the amendment to the law states that any attempt to undertake such a transaction is a criminal offence and could result in a prison sentence of up to 5 years. This law is not retrospective, so will not criminalise transactions that took place before 20 October 2006.
Kikapu said:Often laws are put on the books and are seldom used for what ever reason, and at the same time, laws from the last century may be used on those today. Laws on the books are not wasted. They can be used anytime now or in the future.
That is true. But see above, this is not an old law so that bit doesn't apply. It is very recent.
And, in answer to whoever posted all the stuff about the property issues being CIVIL offences, this quite clearly states it is a CRIMINAL CODE amendment, so that is quite clear.
If this was pertinent to issues that affected me, I would be asking the powers that be in my govt:
*WHY did they make this criminal code amendment.
*WHY did they leave it so long? (It is not retrospective)
(Maybe they thought it would halt or slow down the practice of selling off GC property to foreigners? If so - I would still want to hear that from them - in answer to the above two points)*Last but not least - WHAT is the situation regarding all those property sales and transactions that took place BEFORE 2006?
I can understand that they cannot 'criminalise' actions retrospectively OBVIOUSLY! But this seems to give the impression that all the purchasers from before 2006 have nothing to worry about?
The following document gives details of the actual criminal code amendment:
http://www.mfa.gov.cy/mfa/mfa2006.nsf/All/33DB7B204DADBA44C225724300287D60/$file/NONpaper%20on%20recent%20amendments%20of%20the%20criminal%20code.pdf?OpenElementThis bit is given as the reason for the amendment:
The primary motive behind the introduction of the said amendments
was to amplify the protection granted by Cyprus Law to the right to property: a right which is enshrined both in Article 23 of the Constitution and in Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Thus, in light of Section 5 of the Criminal Code (as amended), the latter applies to, inter alia, all offences committed against immovable property situated anywhere in the Republic, regardless of
-where in the world the offence is committed;
-the identity of the lawful owner; and
-the identity of the wrongdoer.
A secondary motive was one which sprang from the principle of legal certainty.
The idea was to fashion Section 303A in such manner as to explicitly designate as offences certain acts/omissions which, to some extent, could already be brought under other Sections of the Criminal Code. One such Section is Section 281 which reads:
Any person who possesses, cultivates, exploits or uses in any way—
(a) land registered in another’s name;
(b) land, in respect of which there has been deposited in the Land
Registry Office a contract of sale, under the provisions of the Sale of Land (Specific Performance) Law, by the purchaser thereof, without the consent of the registered owner or his heirs or of the purchaser of his heirs, as the case may be, is guilty of a misdemeanour
From memory - I can think of only two cases I heard of where someone was arrested or prosecuted re this - one some bloke at the crossings who had documents on him. The other some Russian woman who'd bought GC property.
I'm amazed how many GCs seem unaware that this even came into being in 2006 but even more amazed that hardly any of those who say their property has been used/sold or whatever in this way have not pursued the matter.
As for 'timing being everything' well! it's been 36 years already - when will the time be right?
