Rent Control

Two limbs, both required

Whether rent control applies is not a matter of opinion

A landlord who thinks a tenant can be removed on a month's notice, and a tenant who thinks the Law protects them, are asking the same question: is this building within the Rent Control Law of 1983, Law 23/1983.

Section 2 answers it with a definition that has two limbs, and both must be satisfied. The building must be within the boundaries of a controlled area, and it must have been completed by 31 December 1999. Miss either and the Law does not apply at all.

Because the limbs are cumulative, the date settles most enquiries on its own. A building completed on or after 1 January 2000 cannot be within the Law whatever the area, and the tool says so without needing to look at the Order.

Dwelling and business premises are both defined, and both are wide

Section 2 does not leave either word to ordinary usage, and both definitions reach further than the words suggest.

A dwelling means a building or structure, or part of one, let as a person's dwelling or for housing associations, institutions and non professional organisations, even if part of it is used for professional purposes. Three things follow. A flat or a room is enough, because part of a building counts. Premises let to a club, a charity or an association are within it, not only premises let to a person. And mixed use does not take a property out: a flat with a consulting room in it remains a dwelling.

Business premises, in the Greek a katastima, means property let for any business, trade or any other professional purpose and used as such. The English word shop is too narrow. An office, a workshop, a clinic or a warehouse is within it. Note the two limbs: the property must be let for that purpose and actually used as such, so a letting for business that is never taken up is not automatically covered.

This matters at the first question on the checker. A tenant who assumes that renting one floor, or renting as a society, or renting an office rather than a shop puts them outside the Law is usually wrong.

Where the list comes from, and why it is stable

Section 3(1) empowers the Council of Ministers to declare areas as controlled by order. Section 3(2) allows it to revoke an order in whole or in part, and section 3(3) requires it to review at least every five years whether any variation is needed, having regard to the commercial and tourist development of each area.

The order in force is the Rent Control (Controlled Areas) Order of 2007, KDP 519/2007, published in the Official Gazette, Supplement III(I), Issue 4242 of 30 November 2007. Paragraph 4 of that Order revoked KDP 149/75, 154/77 and 149/2003, so it consolidated what came before it.

Nothing has replaced it since. Every rent control instrument published between 2008 and 2026 was made under section 8(4)(a), which fixes the permitted rent increase, or under section 19(2). None was made under section 3.

What the Schedule declares

Controlled areas are those within the municipal boundaries of Nicosia, Famagusta, Larnaca, Limassol, Paphos and Kyrenia, together with:

• Nicosia district: the municipalities of Aglantzia, Engomi, Agios Dometios, Strovolos, Lakatamia and Latsia, and the Community Councils of Kakopetria, Galata and Evrychou
• Famagusta district: the municipalities of Paralimni and Ayia Napa
• Larnaca district: the municipalities of Aradippou and Lefkara
• Limassol district: the municipalities of Kato Polemidia, Mesa Geitonia, Agios Athanasios and Germasogeia, the Community Councils of Pano Platres, Kato Platres and Pano Polemidia, and parts of Moutagiaka, Agios Tychonas, Parekklisia, Pyrgos, Moni, Monagroulli and Pentakomo as described in paragraph 2(i) to (vii) of KDP 280/95 and shown on survey map 5611
• Paphos district: the municipalities of Geroskipou and Polis Chrysochous, and the part of Maa Bay, known as Coral Bay, coloured yellow on map 6351

And what it excludes

The Schedule takes out areas occupied, held or used by Larnaca and Paphos airports and by the ports of Limassol, old and new, Larnaca, Paphos, Vasiliko, Zygi and Latsi; areas within which there are tourist pavilions; tourist beaches or premises owned by the Cyprus Tourism Organisation; and state land leased by the Republic to that Organisation under a lease of more than fifteen years for tourism purposes.

The two entries defined by survey map rather than by name are the honest limit of any online tool. Whether a particular plot in those Limassol communities, or at Coral Bay, falls inside the line is a question for the map and the registration number.

Statutory tenant, and what it costs a landlord

Section 2 defines a statutory tenant as a tenant of a property who, on the expiry or termination of the first tenancy, continues to possess it. The status is not chosen and not negotiated. It arises by operation of law when the contractual term ends and the tenant stays.

Section 4 establishes the Rent Control Courts, not more than three, each composed of a President with the qualifications of a District Judge and two other members appointed by the Supreme Council of Judicature.

Section 11(1) is the provision landlords underestimate. No judgment and no order may be made for the recovery of possession of a dwelling or shop to which the Law applies, or for the eviction of a statutory tenant, except on the grounds it lists. Those include rent lawfully due and in arrear for twenty one days or more after written demand; conduct amounting to a nuisance or continuing annoyance; deterioration through destructive acts or wilful serious neglect; breach of an express covenant against subletting; and reasonable requirement by the owner for occupation by the owner, a spouse, a child or a dependent parent.

Several of those grounds carry their own qualifications. On arrears the court will not order recovery if the tenant pays within fourteen days of service of the application. On deterioration it will not order eviction if the tenant makes good the damage within two months. And on the owner occupation ground it will not make an order if satisfied that, in all the circumstances, greater hardship would be caused by making it than by refusing it, with the circumstances expressly including whether the tenant is a displaced person or a sufferer within Part V.

Where this comes from

The definitions and the grounds are taken from the consolidated text of the Rent Control Law of 1983, Law 23/1983, as published by CyLaw, whose amendment history runs to Law 54(I)/2023.

The controlled areas are taken from the Order itself, KDP 519/2007, at Supplement III(I), Issue 4242 of 30 November 2007, and the areas are reproduced in the municipal names used there rather than modernised.

That the Order has not been superseded was established by reading the annual index of Regulatory Administrative Acts for every year from 2008 to 2026.

Checked on 15 August 2026. Section 3(3) requires a review at least every five years, so this page does not update itself and the position should be confirmed before it is relied on.