hi

i have a question on the splitting of land, the land is at this time is listed as agriculture, permission was granted for 1 house to be built, the plot was 17000 sq. metres, i purchased 4000 sq. metres in 2001, i have applied for planning permissin to build a house through a very reputable architect this was granted nationally and locally. the house has been built, my share of the 4000 sq. metres was registered with the land registry office but has not been divided from the original 17000 sq. metres. we signed a contract between myself and the land owner at the solicitors office where the land should of been divided in 2003. i have had electricity installed at my expense. i have been asked now by the owner of the land not to split the land at this present time due to the fact that the land will be going into the built up area. as it is in a very small community, the village is called ora in the district of larnaca. i have no objections to this but my main concern is. is there a time limit on splitting the land or will i face complications at a later date? i do not want to upset my neighbour by going down the legal route.

best regards
karl and rose

Hi Karl and Rose,

From what you say, I believe you have a 'share' of 4/17ths of the total plot and that share has been registered with the Land Registry. (If you have your Title Deeds it should indicate your share on it. If you bought the land in joint names, you should each have a Title Deed showing that you each own 2/17ths of the overall plot).

As far as I'm aware, there is no time limit on splitting the land. But if you wanted to you could go ahead with this as stated in your contract your contract - and in your shoes I would probably go ahead and do it.

If the zoning of the land is about to be changed, it's value will increase quite significantly I expect. If your contract states the precise location of your 4/17ths it shouldn't be a problem.

But if the precise location of the land isn't well defined, you may have a problem with the land owner. The problem is that the Land Registry cannot determine which 4/17ths is your and which 13/17ths is not - unless it's defined in your contract. The result of this is that you own 4/17ths of everything and the land owners owns 13/17ths of everything. So until the plot is divided, there is always room for debate as to precisely where the dividing line will be drawn (unless as I said, it's defined in your contract).

The are also a number of other things you need to be aware of. Firstly, if the landowner decides to sell the rest of the land, he must offer it to you - and if you can match any other buyers' bid, you have the right to buy it. Similarly, if you decide to sell your property, you must offer it to the landowner - who will be able to buy it from you if he can match any offer made to you by someone else.

Secondly neither you nor the landowner can build anything on the land without the others consent. So if the landowner suddenly decided to build apartment blocks on his 13/17ths, he'd need your permission to do so.

There may be some other risks of not getting the land split now - if the land rises very significantly in value, the land owner could become 'greedy'. There was a situation like this in Paraklissia where the landowner caused so much trouble by digging up the road, parking JCBs across gateways and generally hounding the homeowners, they sold up and left. Hopefully this would not happen in your situation.

Regards,

hi nigel,

thanks for your quick response to my questions.
we are coming to cyprus in early june. wil be in touch
many thanks
karl

The fact that it may be going into a residential zone, so what? Is there a real reason he does not want to split it now? Like does he know if there will be a min size before they allow a zone change? Does he have road access of his own ? Without seeing the plot and topographic cannot comment further.

But I my mind there must be some underlying reason why he doesn't want to do it now.

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