THE House Interior Committee has until next week to reach agreement on a proposed bill on title deeds, set to raise £40 million for a government desperate to reduce a spiralling fiscal deficit.
The Interior Committee undertook to pass the bill before the start of the parliamentary summer recess on July 8. Deputies hope to settle their differences by next Monday for a tabling of the bill at the following plenary session on July 1.
The bill deals with the tens of thousands of buildings that do not have title deeds due to various irregularities carried out at the time of their construction. It was drafted by DISY deputies Demetris Syllouris and Maria Kyriacou to solve the chronic problem where thousands of homeowners are unable to obtain title deeds due to various building code violations from the time of construction, delaying millions of pounds in transfer fees for the government.
Violations also include alterations that have not been approved by the authorities and were not on the building plans at the time of approval. This has led to thousands of title deeds being put on hold for decades, creating a huge hole in state revenue.
Following pledges to the European Commission to put state finances in order, the government is eager to start collecting transfer fees on the many property transactions on the island. This can only happen when the owners actually receive the title deeds to their property.
In certain cases, people build or make additions on their property that exceed the coefficient allowed. Essentially, the amended law will permit people to have these irregularities ‘approved’, provided certain conditions are met.
The government is particularly concerned with cases where individual apartment owners have been deprived of their title deeds for years because of minor construction irregularities with the building bloc. This situation allows the title deeds to be withheld for all apartments within the bloc. As a result, the owners are unable to transfer the property to relatives or children and the government fails to collect transfer fees for the whole bloc.
Kyriacou said yesterday that all parties agreed with the philosophy of the bill but that certain legal issues needed to be ironed out before a final agreement could be reached. The biggest sticking point during Monday’s Interior Committee meeting appeared to be the definition of “buyer”. Two opposing views emerged. There were concerns that the state would be legitimising illegal constructions. One group of deputies argued that title deeds should only be awarded to buildings with irregularities where the buyer had been trapped by the mistakes of the contractor or developer.
The other school of thought was that even those who had bought the property and then proceeded to build an illegal extension or other irregularity should also be granted the title deed.
The two DISY deputies supported the latter position, with Syllouris arguing that it would be unthinkable to give title deeds only to those who bought apartments while leaving out those who had bought a small house in the country and added a small balcony.
Expelled DISY deputy Rikkos Erotocritou warned this would lead to the legitimisation of all irregularities as had happened in Greece, making Cyprus a laughing stock. Government coalition member and deputy of left-wing AKEL, Yiannos Lamaris, also voiced concern over the bill, particularly its duration. Under the bill, the amendment would be in effect until 2006, giving time to assess thousands of irregularities on illegal structures. He warned this window of opportunity would open the floodgates for developers and house owners to go ahead with illegal constructions on their properties.
Syllouris argued that irregularities would continue anyway without the bill, allowing this chaos to continue.
The committee will meet again this Friday and next Monday before probably tabling the final version of the bill next Thursday.
