The Story of CyProp Mis-selling and CLP's Expertise on the Matter
Thousands, mostly foreigners, bought off-plan properties in Cyprus during the 2000-2010 decade - or so they thought. Instead of an absolute title to their property, the Republic of Cyprus gave them rights to a property, which if and when built, would be in someone else’s land and be subject to charges by lenders and other creditors until the titles could be separated.
The separation of titles could take many years because instead of separating them before sale, the state accepts separation after the development is completed and proves fully compliant with planning. The chances of compliance are slim considering that planners require that they meet building regulations at the time of final inspection and not at the time permission was granted which ends up becoming a catch-up game between planners and developers. In the meantime, purchasers are at risk that the land could be foreclosed by creditors.
In this way, the state punishes the purchasers for possible planning breaches by the developers while allowing creditors to have the benefit of security over the land on which off-plan units have been sold. All at the expense of foreign purchasers and in favour of local creditors.
The story does not end there. Most lawyers in Cyprus did not consider it necessary to explain the risks to purchasers because this was the norm set by the state.
When purchasers realised the problem, they could not sell without making substantial losses because the properties were purchased at well above their market value. The reason was simple: Until recently, the Land Registry and the Tax Authorities in Cyprus used 1980 values as their benchmark which allowed developer/vendors of off-plan properties to set their own prices without the constraints of market set prices. To sell at such prices, ‘suitable’ purchasers had to be found in a parallel market who were oblivious of market prices. These were mostly foreigners or Cypriot ex-pats.
To find them such purchasers, the sales operation necessitated well-networked sales agents, rental guarantees, and easy/low-cost finance in foreign currencies. But each of these ‘benefits’ added its own loading on the cost to the ignorant purchaser.
Sales agents were paid up to 30% commission, rental guarantees were added to the price, easy finance meant that the borrower could often not afford to keep up with the repayments and borrowing in hard currencies meant that weaker currencies lost value against them and made the cost of repayments and the balance of the loan much higher than it would have otherwise been. The state of Cyprus has been encouraging such parallel markets since the property boom of the 1960s and continues to operate until recently as reported with the ‘Golden Visas’ scandal.
Some purchasers, ran into problems early and ended up in litigation with the developers. Most proceeded with the purchase and found themselves unable to keep up with repayments and unable to sell. Most filed actions against various parties in Cyprus and banks filed actions against defaulting borrowers. But the system of justice in Cyprus is notoriously slow. Cyprus regularly comes bottom of the Justice Scoreboard of the European Commission. It has no class action facilities, numerous irregularities in the operation of an already antiquated legal procedure and it takes on average 7-10 years for a case to reach trial. Cyprus, therefore, has been consistently proving the maxim that justice delayed is justice denied. Procedural recognition of EU Law is almost absent with such preliminary considerations as jurisdiction being pushed to be heard at the trial.
Click Law Partners Solicitors in London, have been representing over a thousand clients through this predicament. The firm adopted the view that to hold the parties involved responsible for all their losses, it would have to prove conspiracy between them when the coincidence of events could not be shown to be a plan by civil parties but a state of affairs presided over by the state of Cyprus since the 1960s. The state has been aware of these events and has allowed these violations of rights to persist. In these circumstances, a court may consider that it is not civil parties but the state that is liable for particular, if not all of the losses.
The firm, therefore, has reached settlements on behalf of its clients with the civil parties in order to mitigate their losses and is launching a Residual Losses Claim against the Republic of Cyprus.