New measures will legalise formerly illegal building extensions

By George Psyllides

THE GOVERNMENT has decided to introduce special measures that will allow town-planning authorities to approve certain existing or planned constructions that would otherwise be illegal.

The amnesty involves additions or changes to existing structures and must have taken place before the end of 2020.

“With a simple application the town-planning authority, which will be obliged to issue a permit inside three months, all illegal cases will be legalised,” Interior Minister Socratis Hasikos said on Wednesday.

And it does not only involve verandas turned into rooms or construction of garages or sheds, which traditionally resulted in the owners being deprived of a title deed.

“We are giving our fellow citizens the right to add up to 20 per cent of the (building) coefficient,” he said. “They can add a small flat above their home, add a room, and so on.”

He said the measure would help people because it would offer them a better quality of life and afford them a title, allowing them to mortgage and sell their property.

The measure involves existing industrial and commercial units.

Asked what the gain for the state would be, Hasikos said this was not about the state.

“Honestly, this does not aim at compelling people to issue title deeds so that we can have revenues.”

He added that the government afforded incentives for large developments because of the economic crisis, and it was now also offering the same to ordinary people,

The government has recently decided to reduce transfer fees by 50 per cent until the end of next year.

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