Panayiotis Rougalas
There are two faces of Limassol. One is the face of a city that has absorbed millions over the past fifteen years, driven by foreign companies and strong investment activity, with residential buildings going up that are tall and new. Others are low-rise, but share the same basic trait: they are new.
The other face is a city of moderately old buildings, along with a large and aging stock of properties that, as we are now seeing, are collapsing. People once thought it was only balconies giving way. Now entire structures are falling and crushing people.
On Holy Saturday, an aging apartment building collapsed, costing two people their lives. Tragic.
After the incident, the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Konstantinos Ioannou, met with the President and a delegation from the Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber. They discussed dangerous buildings and possible steps to strengthen the tools available to District Local Government Organizations so they can manage these risks more effectively. They also discussed reviewing roughly 1,300 identified cases and ranking them based on how dangerous they are.
And I find myself asking this. When a property is occupied by its owner, and that owner knows the building is in poor condition but chooses not to repair it or simply puts the issue aside, that is one situation.
But many of these properties are rented out, either on annual or two-year contracts, or used for short-term stays. Should the people staying in these properties know whether structural work has been done in the past? Whether they are there for a year or just a weekend? When a traveler checks in for a few days, should they be expected to investigate the building’s structural safety before turning the key in the door? Responsibility for a property’s structural condition should rest with two parties: the owner and the state.
So how does the state know which properties are rented and which are owner-occupied? The answer has already been provided, almost by accident, through the recent tax reform. With mandatory electronic rent payments, all rents, both residential and commercial, must now be paid through banks, whether by transfer, card, or e-banking. Cash payments or simple over-the-counter deposits will no longer be allowed. The rule applies to all rent amounts, with no minimum threshold.
Once this is in place, the state will be able to see which properties are rented, and between whom. It should act quickly to inspect more buildings, since the 1,300 identified so far seem far too few to represent the full scale of problematic properties in Cyprus. At a minimum, rented properties should be checked first.
Anyone looking to buy a home will notice that construction flaws appear even in brand-new apartment buildings. Now consider what happens to buildings that were poorly built from the start and have also aged over time.
