In the Land Registry, the procedures for inclusion of borrowers in the Estia plan may be delayed. This is due to the documents required to be submitted by the applicants from the Land Registry, which, however, is in charge of a large volume of other work and is facing staffing problems.
Among the documents that borrowers must submit is the certificate of pan-Cypriot real estate search for the applicant and all members of his family from the Land Registry, which includes information on encumbrances, including sales documents.
At the same time, they will have to provide documents related to the alienation of property from 2016 onwards. It is worth noting that the certificate of pan-Cypriot real estate research, should indicate the values of real estate at 2018 prices.
In order for the Land Registry to provide all the specific documents, it will have to proceed with the required checks, which are time consuming as not all the data are registered electronically. Also for some "problematic" real estate cases, the cadastral officials, in order to verify all the information required to issue the relevant certificates, will have to refer to the cadastral books and open many files.
Typical is the case of a borrower who, after preparing his application to join the Estia plan, when he applied to the Land Registry to obtain the relevant certificate, was informed that the investigation is not expected to be completed before the end of October. And this without any unexpected obstacle. That is, just fifteen days before the end of the application period.
In some cases where the borrowers obtained the relevant certificates from the Land Registry earlier, they will have to be replaced as since last July, the new real estate values were updated with 2018 prices. The certificates held today by many borrowers are with 2013 values. therefore they should be replaced in order for the applications from the banks to be accepted.
For the issuance of certificates that provide information on real estate, the applicant pays specific fees, which increase depending on the type of surveys to be carried out by the Land Registry.
For example, for the provision of property information in a municipality, the fee is € 10 and for properties throughout Cyprus the fees increase to € 20. In the case of the Estia plan certificates, the amounts may reach € 50 for each application, as it will be examined whether the property bears real weight and whether another property of the applicant was alienated. The same fees are paid for each member of the applicant's family.
Andreas Socratous, director of the Land Registry, told "F" that the Department will make every effort within its capabilities to provide the relevant certificates to the borrowers in a timely manner. He also mentioned that citizens can obtain some certificates electronically through the website of the Department. "If the citizens take advantage of the possibilities provided by the website of the Land Registry, then the relevant staff will be released," he added. He called on those interested in the Estia plan, not to stay at the last minute to contact the Land Registry for the documents they need.