Where the document goes to the Land Registry, section 10 of the Transfer and Mortgage of Immovable Property Law, Law 9/1965 requires written authority duly certified by a competent authority, and what that means depends on the country of signature. The order is fixed: signature, then legalisation, then translation. A packet assembled in the wrong sequence is sent back, and the cost is weeks rather than money.
A power of attorney is what makes the rest of it possible
Most of the work described in this section is done in Cyprus, in Greek, at counters that are open while you are asleep. The instrument that allows an advocate here to do it on your behalf is a power of attorney: a document in which you authorise a named person to take specified steps for you.
The chain is worth understanding before you start, because every part of it happens in a fixed order and each link is somebody else's rule. In outline: we draft the document here to suit the steps that actually have to be taken, you sign it where you live in the manner Cyprus will accept, it is legalised in the country where it was signed, it is translated where a translation is required, and it is then produced here.
A Cypriot diplomatic mission abroad will generally certify a signature but will not write the document for you. The London High Commission's published guidance says so plainly: it does not issue legal documents, the document must be prepared in advance, the signatory attends in person and by appointment with a passport or national identity card, and a small consular fee is charged for each signature certified. That gap, between a consulate that will witness and an institution that requires precise wording, is the gap an advocate here fills.
This page covers acting on an estate or on other Cyprus business from abroad. Where the matter is a purchase in progress, with a deposit due, a contract to be signed and deposited and a transfer of title to attend, the stages of that transaction are set out separately on our page on buying property in Cyprus by power of attorney.
How to start before we draft anything
Tell us the full name of each person who will sign, in the form it appears on Cypriot documents, the parties concerned, and a short outline of the property or the estate the power is for, so we can run a conflict check. Tell us which country you will be signing in and roughly when. Please do not send passports or other confidential documents until we confirm we can act, then they can come through the right channel.
If you need something done in Cyprus without travelling, tell us which country you will sign in and which steps the power of attorney has to authorise, at office@kleanthousplatis.com, or the enquiry form. We reply within one business day.
The chain, in order
Signature, legalisation, translation
The order is not interchangeable. A packet assembled in the wrong sequence is sent back, and the cost is weeks rather than money.
We draft the document here, in the form the Cypriot institution that will receive it expects
You sign it in the manner Cyprus accepts: before a Cypriot consular officer, or before a notary public where that route is open
The signature or the notarial act is legalised in the country of signature, by apostille where that country is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention
The document is translated by a sworn translator where a translation is required, and after legalisation rather than before
The original reaches us by courier, and the steps in Cyprus begin
Two points cause most of the trouble. The apostille or other legalisation attaches to the document as signed, so it comes after signature and before translation. And translation for official use in Cyprus is a regulated activity: it is the sworn translator's certification that is accepted, not a translation done by a capable relative.
Names that do not match
This is the quiet cause of more delay than anything else in this work. A grandfather registered as Χαράλαμπος appears on an English birth certificate as Charalambos, on a marriage certificate as Charalampos, on an Australian passport as Harry, and on the title deed as something else again. Greek has been transliterated into English and sometimes back into Greek, across three generations and two alphabets, and no two documents agree.
Cypriot institutions work from documents. Where the documents disagree about who a person is, somebody has to establish the connection between the names, and that is better done at the start than discovered at a counter. Send us every version of the name you have seen, including the ones you assume are mistakes. They are usually the useful ones.
The rule behind the chain
What the Land Registry is actually checking
The steps above are not custom. They are what one section of one law requires, and knowing which one tells you where the delays come from.
Where the document is going to the Land Registry, the provision is section 10 of the Transfer and Mortgage of Immovable Property Law, Law 9/1965. An agent who makes or accepts a declaration of transfer or of mortgage has to prove to the Director that the owner gave a written authority, duly certified by a competent authority.
What "duly certified" means depends on where you sign, and section 10(3) sets it out. Signed in Cyprus, it is the seal and signature of a certifying officer, or the seal and signature of the Mukhtar with the signature of an Aza. Signed anywhere else, it is the seal and signature of a Cypriot consular officer or of a person authorised to act for the Republic, and that officer may certify either your signature or the signature of the local official who took it. Where the country has no such officer, it is the seal and signature of anyone the Director is satisfied has power under that country's law to certify signatures.
The section says nothing about the apostille. Cyprus ratified the Hague Convention abolishing legalisation of foreign public documents by Law 50/1972, and an apostille is how most countries legalise the notary's act. What section 10 gives the Director is the power to refuse where he doubts the competence of the authority that certified the document in the country of signature, and to refuse for a defect, for an ambiguity about the authority given, or for a doubt about the identity of the person who signed, until it is put right. That is why the first question we ask is which country you will sign in.
He may also require proof that the authority has not been revoked, and the section names the passage of a long time since signature as a reason for asking. A power of attorney signed two years ago and never used is not the same document, in practice, as one signed last month.
One consequence is worth knowing before you sign, because clients ask for the document back. Once the Director accepts the declaration, the authority is deposited and kept at the District Lands Office. You may ask for the original to be returned and replaced by a copy certified by the Director, and where it is already held at another District Lands Office a certified copy is accepted in its place.
If you are signing in Cyprus
The officer who certifies your signature is appointed under the Certifying Officers Law of 2012, 165(I)/2012, which repealed the old Cap. 39 outright. The officer has to see the signature put on the document, and has to know you personally, or have your identity confirmed by two people known to them who sign as witnesses, or see a valid identity card or passport. The certificate goes on the document in one of the forms the Law sets out, under the officer's stamp.
A practising advocate cannot be appointed a certifying officer, and neither can an estate agent or a banker. So this is one step of the chain your own advocate does not perform for you, and that is the Law's design rather than an inconvenience.
The limits
What an advocate here can and cannot do for you
The promise that matters to a client three thousand miles away is not expertise. It is knowing exactly what you will have to do yourself. So it is worth being direct about the limits.
What can generally be done for you
- Searches of the register and enquiries of Cypriot authorities and institutions
- Obtaining certificates and clearances from community councils, municipalities and the boards that issue them
- Filing, correspondence, attendance at the Land Registry and at Cypriot bodies on your instructions
- Steps in a matter that has to be brought before a Cypriot court, where we are instructed to act
- Signature of documents on your behalf, where the power of attorney authorises the particular act and the institution accepts it
What cannot
- Anything the power of attorney does not authorise, which is why the document is drafted around the steps rather than in general terms
- Facts. Where a statement has to be made on oath about matters within your own knowledge, it is yours to make, not ours
- Acts where the institution requires the person themselves, or a specific form of authority it will not accept in another form
- Acting for two people whose interests conflict, which is why we run a conflict check before accepting instructions from a family
- Acting at all before we have identified our client, which is a professional requirement and not a formality we can waive for distance
A power of attorney in favour of an advocate is an authority to act, not a transfer of anything you own. It should be limited to what the matter needs, it should say who may act under it, and it can be revoked. If a document you are asked to sign appears to do more than the job in front of you, that is a reason to stop and ask, whoever sent it.
The relationship it creates is the one the Contract Law, Cap. 149 calls agency. Under section 142 an agent is the person employed to do an act for another or to represent another in dealings with third persons, and the person for whom the act is done is the principal. Section 143 allows any person competent to contract to employ an agent, and section 149 gives an agent authority, in an emergency, to do what a person of ordinary prudence would do in their own case to protect the principal from loss.
Two sections answer the question people ask most often, whether the person you appoint may hand the work to somebody else. Section 150 is the rule: an agent cannot lawfully employ another to perform acts he has expressly or impliedly undertaken to perform personally, unless a substitute agent is allowed by the ordinary custom of trade or required by the nature of the agency. Where a substitute is properly appointed, section 152 makes the principal represented by, and bound by the acts of, that substitute as if appointed by the principal directly. Where the agent appoints one without authority, section 153 puts the agent in the position of principal towards that person and answerable for their acts both to the principal and to third parties. It is the reason a power drafted here names the person who may act rather than an office in the abstract.
Questions we are asked
Can I sign in front of a notary near me instead of travelling to the consulate?
Often, and for clients in Australia and the United States it is frequently the practical route, because the nearest Cypriot mission may be in another state or another city. Whether a notarised and apostilled signature is accepted depends on the institution the document is going to and on the act being authorised, so ask us before you book anything. The one thing we would not advise is signing first and asking afterwards.
Does the power of attorney have to be in Greek?
It has to be usable by the body that receives it, and that body works in Greek. In practice that means either a document in Greek, or a document accompanied by a translation from a sworn translator, and we will tell you which we are preparing and why.
How long does a power of attorney last, and can I cancel it?
Its duration and its scope are matters for the document, and it can be drafted to expire or to be limited to a single transaction. It can also be revoked. Tell us if you want it to end on a date and we will draft it that way.
Four of us are inheriting and we live in three countries. Do we each need one?
Usually each person who has to be represented signs their own, in the country where they are, and they arrive here separately. That is normal and it is not a reason to delay the whole matter until everyone is ready. We will tell you which steps can start with the signatures already in hand.
Is it safe to give a power of attorney to a lawyer I have never met?
It is a fair question and you should ask it. A power of attorney limited to defined acts, in favour of a named advocate at a registered law company, and capable of revocation, is a different instrument from a broad authority in favour of someone you cannot identify. We will tell you what our document authorises, in English, before you sign it, and you are entitled to have it reviewed by a lawyer in your own country first.
Written on these subjects
Title Deeds in Cyprus: What the Register Records and How a Transfer Is Completed
PropertySelling Property in Cyprus: What the Seller Has to Deliver
PropertySpecific Performance in Cyprus: How a Deposited Contract of Sale Protects the Buyer
PropertyBack to the overview for Cypriots abroad. Related practice areas: Trusts, Wills & Succession and Property.