Our hats are
down for your great advise and information in related to
property issues.
With thank you anticipation, please, can you give
advise/information for the following:
1. We bought this small detached house in 2006 through
bank housing loan in Engomi Nicosia, it is built on a
plot with three houses on it. All three of us have the
titles of their land with housing plans by contractor's
architect, but no final approval for the houses.
What are the benefit of the final approval ? as we
bought the house through bank housing loan and no body
had asked us for the final approval of the house.
One of our friend said "no benefits" while you have the
land title. By taking this house final approval "a
paper" we will have to pay more tax (now on land and
house). Please, advise.
2. This is about the sewage system charges we pay, while
we don't have any one. Do we have the right to refuse to
pay these charges ?
3. The last one is about VAT, our present house had no
VAT to pay as built before the law passed. Now we are
planning to buy another bigger house with VAT to live-in
but to keep the old house for our daughter.
One contractor told us that as we will be living in the
new house, our VAT will be refunded, is it true ?
Regards and God bless you
Xenia Qadir
A.: Regarding the certificate of final approval this is
the first permit/certificate required in the process of
securing a title deed. The law also stipulates that “no
property can be occupied without a certificate of final
approval”. This legal requirement however is not
enforced unless there is a report. So it is a major
worry for those who do not have (be it the chances to
have a problem are limited). Since you do not have
separate titles for your homes, I suspect that what you
have is a share title on the land. If this is what you
have, it is a major drawback for practical reasons and a
factor reducing its value (see our article on New Type
of Titles). Regarding increased property taxes etc, this
is partly true (the local authorities do not depend on
this only to assess your home as land with the building
on). The difference in the tax is small and compared
with the benefit of having a certificate of final
approval, it is not worthy avoiding it.
You have no right to refuse to pay the sewage taxes. See
past Q+A replies on he subject. In order to get a V.A.T
refund, the new home must be your main residence. If you
have another home, you must prove that the new house is
your main home. Difficult to persuade the authorities to
get a refund if you declare 2 homes in Nicosia. It would
have been different if one of the homes was/is a holiday
home.
A.P. Loizou
Q.: Hello
Mr Loizou,
Once again I would appreciate your views on a problem
that myself and several friends and neighbours have been
presented with. We have received for the first time a
bill from Paphos Sewage Board. We have lived on the
Universal area for about 4 1/2 years and for the past 15
months have had to suffer a huge amount of disruption
whilst the roads and pavements were excavated to enable
new sewage pipes to be laid. This appears to have been
completed, but as yet the roads and pavements have not
been properly repaired. In fact many of the pavements
are impossible to walk on. We have now been presented
with a bill for sewage charges to be paid by 31st
October. As we had not been informed that we have been
connected to the main sewer system, and were still using
our originally installed septic tanks, we made
enquiries. We were told that we were not connected to
the sewer system and in fact it would be at least a
further 2 years before we were! When we asked about the
bill that had been sent to us we were told that this had
to be paid otherwise proceedings would be started
against us for non-payment.
Your advise on this situation will be appreciated by us
all. Keep up the good work with the Cyprus Weekly
column.
John Walker, Paphos.
A.: I have exactly the same problem with my Nicosia
house. The charge is made to cover the capital
expenditure, so each property owner pays a tax based on
the 1.1.80 value. I know how you feel, hat you are
paying for something which you will have after 2 years
(in my case after 5 years!!). Regarding the pavement
state if you cannot get anywhere with the sewage Board,
a letter from a solicitor suggesting legal action might
put matters right. As I always say this is a siga-siga
(slowly-slowly) country. On a positive note you must
admit that having this service is good for everybody and
it will improve the value of your holding.
Thank you for your comments and I am passing your letter
to the editor.
A.P. Loizou
www.aloizou.com.cy
www.aloizou.ro
www.aloizou.ru
ala-HQ@aloizou.com.cy
