Almost one in three jointly owned buildings in Cyprus is not registered, meaning it has not secured a final approval certificate.
A study by the district local government organisations (DLGOs) counts 14,208 registered and 6,711 unregistered jointly owned buildings across the island. A building is unregistered either because no application was submitted to the Land Registry Department or because one was submitted and is still being examined. The study was prepared during discussion of the bill on jointly owned buildings (the Management of Jointly Owned Buildings and Related Matters Law of 2023) and put before the House Interior Committee. The building figures come from the Land Registry Department.
The registered buildings contain 159,659 units, and the unregistered buildings 59,976 units. Of every 100 units in registered buildings, about 40 are also not registered.
The study cites a Land Registry Department estimate that 40 per cent of unregistered jointly owned buildings meet the criteria for registering management committees. That indirectly implies that about 60 per cent do not.
The Land Registry Department used to monitor jointly owned buildings, but during the reform of local government it was judged more appropriate to hand their management to local authorities. The new municipalities objected, and it was finally decided that the DLGOs would take over. They accepted the role reluctantly and amid many tensions, one of which was the cost of managing and monitoring the buildings. The study was drawn up to record the current situation so that ways of running the DLGOs sustainably could be examined.
The study estimates that the annual fee could be set at 20 euros per unit, based on economic analysis and Land Registry Department data. The DLGOs say it should be charged to the owner of every unit, registered or not, to fund the service that will be set up to manage the buildings. At 20 euros across the 159,659 registered units, it would raise 3,193,180 euros a year.
Based on their experience with other fees, the DLGOs would be satisfied with collecting even 70 per cent of what is owed before they take action against owners. Even sewerage fees are collected at about 80 per cent, it is noted, so some who are less optimistic think the rate for jointly owned buildings could be lower and at best reach the sewerage level.
The fee will be added to the service charges residents of flats and housing complexes already pay, if they are up to date, and to the amount set so that a management committee can operate. Residents will also pay an extra sum each month into a common fund, drawn on for maintenance or repairs to their building or complex.
By district, the study gives these figures:
| District | Registered buildings | Unregistered buildings | Registered units | Unregistered units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicosia | 4,927 | 2,297 | 53,553 | 19,688 |
| Famagusta | 898 | 934 | 9,895 | 9,371 |
| Larnaca | 2,299 | 758 | 26,213 | 6,685 |
| Limassol | 3,232 | 1,661 | 38,329 | 14,167 |
| Paphos | 2,852 | 1,061 | 31,669 | 9,885 |
The study says seven things must happen before the DLGOs take over supervision of the buildings. The first four are revising or removing powers assigned to them that cannot be applied, an explicit provision for effective mechanisms such as cutting off water or electricity through the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) at the request of the DLGO concerned, adjusting fees to cover the real administrative cost and keep the organisations viable, and full coverage by central government of the cost of compiling the initial registers.
The other three are an updated electronic handover of the jointly owned buildings file by the Land Registry Department, a centrally developed and operated funded digital platform for registering and supervising management committees, and a clear timetable of at least 24 months for transferring powers.
The DLGOs, and their presidents in particular, also believe important decisions should be taken by the boards of the organisations, not by each DLGO’s development licensing director, as happens now. The reasoning is that responsibility and powers should not be concentrated in one person. Given the breadth and importance of the matters regulated, the study says, it is appropriate for substantive decisions to be taken at collective level “to ensure institutional balance”.
The DLGOs also propose a fee for filing a hierarchical appeal, which owners can lodge against the organisations’ decisions, to avoid a pointless or abusive burden on the administrative system and ensure the procedure operates rationally.
In its “Strategic Summary and Recommendations” chapter, the study lists further findings on the Land Registry Department’s data. They do not include owners’ contact details, contain outdated addresses, may include inaccuracies such as a wrong number of units, and cover units with no recorded owners. For unregistered buildings, the list is incomplete, and permit files, including physical ones, must be searched to establish whether they fall under the legislation.
The DLGOs’ position is that full recording, updating and digitisation of the data must come before the legislation is applied.
