The TRNC Government is passing a new law to allow individual title deeds to be issued for properties under construction. The draft bill has been approved by the Council of Ministers and has been passed to Parliament for final approval. It will then become law.
The proposed law would mean that purchasers of off-plan properties in Northern Cyprus would be able to take title to their property immediately on purchasing – that is before the construction has even started.
This would help to ease the current problems where unscrupulous – read crooked – builders are refusing to hand over title deeds for completed properties or demanding additional payments from purchasers before doing so. It would also remove the risk of builders taking mortgages over properties and so preventing the transfer of title from taking place.
The Government also hopes that this will pave the way for a new ‘mortgage’ system to be introduced into the TRNC to allow banks to provide mortgage finance to ‘off plan’ purchasers. Mortgages on off-plan developments are not possible under the current system because purchasers are unable to take title until the construction is complete and, until then, they have nothing that can be mortgaged. Issuing title deeds at the start of construction would allow purchasers to take title and finance the purchase through a mortgage from a bank. The mortgage would then be registered over the purchaser’s own individual title deed.