According to Cyprus Property News, a special Audit Office report says planning exemptions meant for extraordinary cases risk becoming a second route to approval, including for buildings already built without permits.
According to Cyprus Property News, a special report by the Cyprus Audit Office, led by Auditor-General Andreas Papaconstantinou, warns that planning exemptions risk weakening development rules and rewarding unauthorised construction. The law allows permits to depart from development plans in "extraordinary cases", but the auditors say the mechanism is increasingly at risk of becoming a second route to development approval. The sharpest concern is retrospective approval, where a building goes up first and permission is sought later. The report examined exemption procedures from 2020 to 2023. Authorities considered 633 applications, including 259 for individual homes, and approved 139 of those home applications. Examination took 25 to 31 months on average: some cases were completed in under three months, others took more than ten years. Between 2020 and 2023 the Council for the Study of Derogations (Symepa) departed from planning authorities' recommendations in 90 of 627 cases, and in 2023 that rate rose to 21.4 per cent. The Audit Office noted that disagreement is not automatically a flaw, but substantial departures from technical advice should have clearly recorded reasons. The report cites several cases, including a Larnaca district property in an industrial zone licensed as warehouses but operating as a supermarket, and a Limassol district case involving 20 houses built without the required permits outside a residential zone. In the latter, the cabinet granted planning permission on 8 February 2023, and in June 2024 the Audit Office referred the case to the Independent Authority Against Corruption. Cyprus Property News stresses that anyone considering a purchase in Cyprus should check the land title and any encumbrances, verify the status of planning and building permits, and have an independent lawyer review the sale contract before signing or paying. Where permits have not yet been issued, the contract should clearly state what happens if they are refused, amended or delayed.