The property market in Cyprus has, over the last 30 years or so,
inflated in value in huge leaps. Like everywhere else you might say, but
unlike everywhere else, the island has, in a relatively short space of time,
gone from supporting mainly agricultural to mainly
development land and the once small villages are rapidly becoming
conurbations addended to the five main towns of Nicosia,
Larnaca, Limassol, Paphos and Ayia Napa (with Polis following quickly
behind.) The traditional handing down of property from
family to family by way of the prikka system, which was constructed by the
parents of the daughters of the families working their
whole lives in order to provide said daughters with a home to begin their
married life with, hence a reason for the possibly more
laid back attitude to life, where you were not bound by a hefty mortgage at
the start of your married life. You just worked
towards your progeny's secure future. The influx of foreigners, firstly the
Lebanese then the Russians with suitcases full of cash
and Brits with a house in London which they sold, put half the money in the
bank to live off the interest and bought an overpriced
house with the rest( without haggling,) have partly conspired to bump up the
prices to a ridiculous and in our opinion
unsustainable level. You can buy a pleasant house with a dollop of land in
the south of France for less money than you can now buy
a 3 bedroom villa on a postage stamp in Cyprus!
If we have not put you off yet and you are still considering Cyprus as a
place to invest, retire or start a new life, please be
aware of the dangers, which are avoidable with the right help. We have a
land registry system which you must be sure to go
through. Title deeds are very important and although we do not yet have a
system where 'searches' are done in the same way as the
UK (neither are structural surveys the norm yet) there is an equivalent
process and you can safeguard your investment by employing
a good (and independent from the sellers) lawyer, to make sure that the
seller owns not only the land but also the trees and
buildings on it, that there are no outstanding monies owed to the bank or
anyone else and that you will get your title deeds
either on completion, with an older property or on a specified date with new
developments, otherwise a substantial amount of the
sale price must be held back until you do receive said title deeds.
If you are looking for a new development or off plan property, we suggest
you see Cyprus property.
Property in the countryside, or older properties should also be investigated
thoroughly to make sure that all the owners
( there can be as many as 20, especially on rural or older property) agree
to sell. If you buy only part of a property but are
the major shareholder, you can force an auction of the whole, but be
prepared to pay the full value ,or sell your share.
Trees can be something else to check about. Trees can be owned by a number
of people who do not own the land, so, if you are
purchasing a piece of land which has olive or carob or citrus trees on it,
make sure that they come with the property or can be
bought separately at the same time as you buy the property.
If you buy a flat or apartment be sure that the communal charges for
cleaning, lifts etc are not able to be raised without reference to the
individual owners, as this has been used s a way to make staying in an old
apartment block untenable if the builders wish to knock down the building to
rebuild after a certain number of years. If your 25 Euros a month is raised
overnight to 100 Euros you would not be very happy, check that this is not
possible before you sign the contracts.
Building regulations and town and country planning are not approached in
quite the same way in Cyprus as they are in the UK. You are allowed to build
according to the planning zone your land is situated in, so for example if
you have three donums in an agricultural zone, you can build on a small
percentage of that land whilst in the town you may be allowed over 100%
coverage. Height restrictions are also supposed to apply, however we have
yet to figure out how that works as the new building at the front of Larnaca
has thrown all our calculations into a complete nonsense. 16 to 20 storeys
high at the front of the town (the seaside) should only be six or at most
eight stories high with the buildings behind rising, it is now the other way
around!
We were very upset when the Turks walked in and took a portion of the
island, but now we are busy selling it off to the highest
bidders and at the end of the day the outcome will be the same. Cyprus will
not belong to the Cypriots.
.
To see older and second hand property try both of our
Cyprus Property Net and
CyprusProperty Network
respectively.
If you need a mortgage for a holiday or retirement home, see the
banking
page for details from the Bank of Cyprus, they can give you a lot of help along
the way even though you no longer need permission to buy unless you are a
non EU citizen, in which case they can still help you with an application to the Council of Ministers etc.
Speaking of which, you need permission from the Council of Ministers to
buy a property in Cyprus if you are not from an EU member country but this is normally only a formality
although it can take a quite bit of time.
Now on to the goodies, we did have these main sections for Property.
As the demand grew, we branched out to new stand alone property sites and so
the links below take you to the appropriate sites, which are updated
regularly. The pages you will find within a window on Cyprus are no longer
valid especially on pricing, so do forgive us if you find an out of
date property which begins with windowoncyprus.com/ We are however
leaving them for reference. Click
on the ones that interest you.
