Il tempo della responsabilità degli edifici comunali

I work in this sphere and I observe the following problems:

1. The developers do not care about their legal obligations under the law and often do not register the buildings as “communal”, which is otherwise, a legal obligation under Immovable Property Law (Cap. 224). Accordingly, no Administrative Committee can be established in such a building prior to registration.

2. The developers take over the management of the buildings they build and they refuse to follow the legislation, specifically, they exclude their own units from contributions towards common expenses, putting the burden on the few owners who do pay without knowing the facts. They justify their exclusion through various tricks, outdated plans and mostly lies.

3. The owners are mostly clueless about what they are buying, and only recently public portals of the Department of Lands and Surveys have caught up to the reality and they now publish official data online, which makes verification much easier.

4. Most of the buildings have illegal additions/conversions and the government has not been enforcing the law for many years. EOA says it will do something but I do not think they have the capacity to address such a massive issue.

5. EAC owns units in many communal buildings in Cyprus – these units are denoted as “ELECTRIC SUBSTATION”. However, EAC does not pay towards common expenses, despite its obligation to do so under the Law. The so called “management companies” appear to isolate EAC from payment. Moreover, these non-regulated “management companies” have formed an association who openly tells them to exclude EAC from payment. Why is this happening and who will stop them?

The issues of negligence don’t appear out of nowhere, someone clever has to start them and show by example. If EAC is a co-owner in many buildings and they don’t pay or care, why should a foreigner investor care or even know about the issues?

The problem is the one of deep rooted corruption linked to developers and their shady money flows.