Compulsory acquisition in Cyprus: the deadlines that decide it

Compulsory acquisition takes ownership of land permanently. It is a different thing from requisition, which takes possession for a period, and the two run under different statutes. This page is about the Compulsory Acquisition Law, Law 15/1962, the statute that governs every acquisition by the Republic, a municipality, a public law body or a public utility.

Owners tend to focus on the amount and to treat the timetable as administrative detail. That is the wrong way round. The statute imposes hard deadlines on the acquiring authority whose breach ends the acquisition altogether, and it imposes short deadlines on the owner whose breach settles the compensation at the authority's own figure.

The acquisition must serve a listed public benefit purpose

Section 3(1) permits property to be compulsorily acquired for purposes of public benefit, subject to the Constitution and to the Law itself. Section 3(2) sets out what those purposes include, and the list is long: the defence or security of the Republic; public safety, public order, public health or public morals; the fulfilment of international obligations; the supply, maintenance or development of supplies and services necessary to life or promoting the welfare or recreation of the public; agrarian reform; the promotion or development of agriculture, industry, commerce or tourism; mining and similar industry; archaeological excavation and the conservation of ancient monuments; town and country planning and housing; the creation or maintenance of communications by land, sea or air; the conservation of the soil and of natural resources including forests and waters, and the distribution of water; the better use and development of property for the public benefit; places of recreation; public buildings and public works; the purposes of co-operation; the purposes of educational, religious, charitable or athletic institutions within the competence of a Communal Chamber; the purposes of municipal authorities, public law bodies and public utility organisations specially provided for by law; and burial places.

The purpose has to be stated. Under section 4(1)(b) the notice must describe the property and clearly specify the purpose and the grounds of the acquisition, and under section 14 property acquired may be used only for the purpose for which the acquisition was made.

The notice, and the thirty days that follow it

The process opens with a notice of acquisition. Under section 4(1)(a) the acquiring authority publishes it in the Official Gazette in the form set out in the Schedule to the Law, and under section 4(1)(b) it also serves a copy on every interested party.

Where a party cannot be found and the local authority confirms that every possible effort was made, the notice is published in at least two daily newspapers circulating in the district where the property lies, and is then deemed served. The local authority must give that confirmation within one month of the letter asking for it, and if it does not, the confirmation is deemed given.

Section 4(1)(c) gives interested parties thirty days to submit objections to the competent authority. The thirty days run from the latest of three dates: publication in the Gazette, service on the interested party, or publication in the two newspapers. That is worth reading twice, because the date that matters is the last of them, not the first.

A proviso adds a step where the acquiring authority is a municipal authority or a Communal Chamber: it may not publish a notice at all unless the Council of Ministers has been given fifteen days' warning of the intended publication.

The order, and the twelve month guillotine

Once the objection period expires, section 6(1) requires the authority to examine any objections as quickly as possible and, unless it is a municipal authority or a Communal Chamber, to transmit them to the Council of Ministers with its observations. If acquisition is then judged expedient, section 6(2) provides for it to be declared by an acquisition order published in the Gazette.

The proviso to section 6(2) is the provision owners should know: no acquisition order may be issued after twelve months have passed from the date the notice was published in the Gazette.

Section 6(4) settles who issues it. Where the Republic is the acquiring authority, the Council of Ministers; otherwise the authority itself, except that a public law body or a public utility organisation needs the prior approval of the Council of Ministers.

Two deadlines that end the acquisition by themselves

Section 7(2) converts the timetable into a sanction, and it operates automatically. If the acquisition order is not published within twelve months of the notice's publication in the Gazette, or if the calculated compensation is not offered within fourteen months of that publication, the subsequent procedure lapses and the intended acquisition is deemed abandoned.

Section 7(1) allows the authority to abandon deliberately: at any time after publication of the notice and before payment or deposit of the compensation, it may by order published in the Gazette revoke the notice and any related order, generally or as to part of the property, and the acquisition is then deemed abandoned to that extent.

Abandonment, whether chosen or automatic, is not free. Under section 7(3) the authority must pay every interested person all the costs reasonably incurred since the publication of the notice and in consequence of it, and where the amount is disputed the court determines it. Valuation fees and legal costs incurred in responding to a notice that comes to nothing are recoverable.

Fourteen months to negotiate, then an offer the authority must make

Section 8(1) obliges the authority, within fourteen months of publication of the notice, to enter into negotiations to acquire the property by private agreement and to fix the compensation by agreement, including its apportionment among all interested persons. If no agreement is reached within that period, the authority is obliged to make an immediate offer of the compensation it has calculated. The offer is a duty, not a courtesy.

Section 9 keeps the court available in parallel: if no agreement has been reached by the time the acquisition order is published, the authority or any interested person may apply to the court to determine the compensation, or to apportion it.

The seventy five day trap

Section 8(2) lets an owner take the money now and argue about it later, but on terms. The owner may accept the offered compensation subject to the amount being determined by the court, provided the acceptance is accompanied by written consent to the property being registered immediately in the authority's name.

In that case the owner must apply to the court for determination of the amount within seventy five days of receiving the compensation at the latest. After that period, agreement is deemed to have been reached under section 8(1). The consequence is blunt: an owner who banks the offer and lets seventy five days pass has accepted the authority's figure as the final compensation, whatever a valuer might later say it was worth.

How the compensation is computed

Section 10 lays down the rules, and several of them are worth money.

• Open market value at the date of the notice. Under paragraph (a) the value is what the property would fetch if sold voluntarily in the open market at the time the notice of acquisition was published. Later movements in the market are not the measure.
• The compulsion is ignored. Paragraph (b) disregards the fact that the acquisition is compulsory, except where it is made for mining purposes.
• Injurious affection where part is taken. Paragraph (f) takes into account any increase or decrease in the value of other property the owner holds together with the part acquired.
• Severance. Paragraph (g) adds the loss suffered by the owner from the separation of the acquired property from other property held with it.
• Equivalent reinstatement. Paragraph (i) allows compensation to be assessed on the basis of the reasonable cost of equivalent reinstatement elsewhere, where the property was used for a purpose of a kind for which there is no market and bona fide reinstatement is intended.
• Disturbance. Paragraph (l) takes into account the loss directly suffered where the property was used, and would have continued to be used, for a business, trade or profession, by reason of the loss of possession.
• Not only the land's value. Paragraph (m) confirms that the open market rule does not affect compensation for any other matter not directly based on the value of the property acquired.

Against those, paragraph (d) disregards special suitability for a purpose for which the property can be used only under statutory powers, or for which there is no demand except the special needs of a special purchaser or of the authority, and paragraph (e) disregards an increase in value arising from a use that could be prohibited by the court, or is unlawful, or is injurious to health.

Interest. Paragraph (n) adds interest at three per cent a year from the date the notice was published until the compensation is paid. A proviso preserves the older position for acquisitions whose notice was published before Law 61(I)/2014 came into force: on those, interest at nine per cent continues to be payable from publication of the notice up to the date that Law came into force.

Payment, encumbrances and the passing of title

Under section 12(1) the compensation, once agreed or determined, is paid forthwith in cash, and under section 12(2) a refusal to collect it leads to deposit rather than delay. Under section 13, on payment or deposit with the Accountant General, the property passes to the authority free of every encumbrance.

That is why section 11 matters to anyone holding security. The person entitled to compensation is the owner, including a person entitled to be registered as owner. But where the property is pledged or charged with a sum secured by mortgage, a registered judgment or another encumbrance, the compensation, or enough of it to discharge the debt, is paid to the secured creditor according to the existing priority of that security. The security does not survive the acquisition; it attaches to the money.

The three year rule: getting the land back at the price paid

Section 15(1) is the provision most often forgotten, and it can be the most valuable. Where property was acquired after the Constitution came into force and, within three years from the date it passed to the authority, the purpose of the acquisition was not achieved, or was abandoned, or the whole or part of the property proves to exceed the authority's actual needs, then the authority must by written notice offer the property back at the price at which it acquired it, to the person to whom it belonged before the acquisition or, if that person has died, to the personal representatives or heirs.

The former owner then has three months to send a written acceptance or refusal, and silence counts as refusal. If additions, removals or other modifications were made while the authority held the property, or if only part is offered back, the authority fixes a reasonable price in the notice, which the former owner may dispute in the document of acceptance; failing agreement, the court fixes the price. Under section 15(1)(b), an acceptance must be followed by payment within a further three months from the acceptance, or from the date the price was agreed or determined by the court, and the authority then transfers ownership forthwith.

Two limits complete the picture. Under section 15(2), if the offer is refused, or the price is not paid within the period, or the authority later judges the property no longer necessary for the purpose it achieved, the property is sold by public auction. And under section 15(3) none of that applies where the property becomes necessary for another public benefit purpose and the authority publishes a retention order in the Gazette describing the property and specifying the purpose and the grounds; a public law body or public utility again needs the prior approval of the Council of Ministers.

What may not be done to the property in the meantime

Two sections govern the period between notice and completion. Section 5(1) allows officers or servants of the authority, or any other person duly authorised by it, to enter, inspect and survey the property once the notice has been published. Section 19(1) runs the other way: between publication of the notice and the completion or abandonment of the acquisition, destruction of or damage to the property is prohibited.

Questions we are asked

This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws and their application can change, and individual circumstances differ. For advice on your own matter, contact Klitos Platis at klitos@kleanthousplatis.com or telephone +357 22 680 330.

Klitos Platis

Advocate, Partner

Kleanthous & Platis LLC, Nicosia · Published 22 August 2026