Property Matters

CONVEYANCE  FORMALITIES  

Conveyance in Cyprus may be different than the formalities in any other country. The below is how it works in Cyprus;

a)      Properties purchased from a Developer; 

The property purchased may be an apartment or a villa. In either case you need to have your “purchase permission” issued by the Council of Ministers before you may be entitled to  request the deeds of the purchased property into your name. Your Lawyer should inform you at what stage your application with the Council of Ministers is. (As can be seen in the “ Guidance to First Time Buyers” section of our web site your Lawyer should have applied for this permission on your behalf)

If your application for permission to purchase has been granted you or your Lawyer should contact the Developer and ask whether the individual deeds of the property purchased has been issued by the Land registry. If the deeds are issued then your Lawyer would be able to start the conveyance process. At that stage your Lawyer will need the following in hand;

i)                    Your Power of Attorney enabling him to do the conveyance. (Any power of attorney given earlier for contract signing or any power of attorney which is not notarized will not be acceptable at this stage)

ii)                  Copy of your latest passport copy

iii)                Copy of the individual deeds of the property

iv)                Receipt of the property tax (rates) for the year that conveyance is to take place, issued by the relevant Municipality or Tax Office

v)                  VAT invoice

      Taxes Payable; 

      By the Developer………………………………….6.25% of the contract price

      By the Purchaser;

            i) VAT…………………………………………5.00 %            ,,

            ii) Transfer tax…………………………………3.00 %            ,,

            iii) Municipality tax

            iv) Currency exchange difference

 v) Admin. Fees & Conveyance fees

(Items iii, iv,   v above should not exceed a few hundred pounds depending on what date the contracts were signed)

       b) Properties Purchased from Private Persons 

All the above shall apply with only exception that the Purchaser shall not be required to pay any VAT to the Seller and therefore such receipt will not be required

GUIDANCE  TO  FIRST  TIME  BUYERS 

As soon as you express your desire to buy a property with the assistance of our legal firm 

We shall be sending to you an “Purchase Permission Application Form” with a request to complete this form, by you and by anyone else that may be buying jointly with you. This form has two purposes. One is that we shall use your personal details in preparing your Contract of Sale and also we shall be submitting these details, after contracts are signed, to the authorities for the purpose of obtaining official permit to legally own the purchased property by you. 

The completed form/s should be returned to us at your earliest convenience together with eachintended   purchaser’s passport copy (page with picture only). This, can be done either by return of e-mail or by fax to    0090 392 2275020  or  0090 392 8150489. 

Following receipt of the above and our checks on the property, the contracts will be prepared by us and e-mailed to you for your approval.  

Once contracts are approved by you and your approval is conveyed to us, they will be signed and exchanged by us (No need for you to sign the contract or return such contract or even to come to Cyprus) and a full set of Contracts will be posted to you. The first installment for the purchase price and  our fees would then become payable  

Soon after the payment of the above indicated dues, our office will file an application to the Council of Ministers asking for the grant of the necessary official permit  to legally own the property by you and though as from signing of contracts you will be regarded as the owner of the purchased property, the Ministerial permission (normally granted within 12 months from the date of application) will enable you to register the property into your name’s when the title deeds are issued by the Land Registry.  

In meantime and soon after you have your copy of the contract in hand, you are required to apply to your Police authorities and seek a certificate from them showing whether you have or have not any “criminal convictions”. It will take your Police Authorities approximately 40 days before they can send to you this certificate and as soon as you receive it, please post the original to our address as shown on this letter. 

PAYMENTS 

We  shall be informing you of the precise figures to pay soon after contracts are exchanged which will be as follows; 

a) First installment for the Vendor 

b) Legal fees (as above stated) 

c) Stamp duties. ( This is to pay for legalization of contract and is 0.5% of contract value+ £25 Admin Fees) 

d) Dues required for the Registration of Contract with the Land Registry 

d) Local bank charges. (This is 0.12% of the amount transferred or minimum £21) 

While all the above may be paid directly to the Vendors, we shall be happy to accept the payment ( and even the rest of the installment payments) to our client’s account as below and make recorded payments to the Vendors on your behalf at no extra charge to you. 

Here are our bank and account details; 

T. GARANTI BANK 

Ataturk Cad. No. 10 

Girne, Mersin 10, 

Turkey 

Branch Code;   493 

GBP A/C No;  9095848 

Swift Code  ;   TGBATRISXXX 

IBAN Code ;   TR56 0006 2000 4930 0009 0958 48 

Beneficiary  ;   TALAT  KURSAT & Co