Title deeds to be handed over to thousands of home owners

THE Plenum last night unanimously approved a bill amending the town planning law, which was designed to resolve the chronic problem of thousands of homeowners being unable to obtain ownership deeds because of various infringements of the building code.

The amendment however deals with dwellings constructed under the 1990 town planning law only. The rest would be dealt with in October.

Through the law, the government hopes to put millions of pounds in its coffers from transfer fees. Thousands of homeowners have never received an title deeds due to violations at the time of construction.

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.

In many cases, people constructed or made additions to their property that exceeded the coefficient or a dividing wall had been wrongly placed a foot closer to the main building.

The government is particularly concerned with cases where individual apartment owners have been deprived of their deeds due to minor irregularities in the bloc. In these cases the deeds for all the apartments were withheld and the owners are unable to transfer the property to relatives or children.

The government is eager to start collecting transfer fees especially following pledges to the European Commission to put state finances in order.

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