Britain keeping watch on title deeds fiasco

BRITAIN will take a close interest in measures taken by the Cyprus government to sort out the problems of home buyers left without their title deeds, a written answer to the House of Lords has said.

Two questions were placed before the Lords last November detailing the concerns of some property buyers worried about the implications of not holding legal ownership to their properties.

For them, the issue became more urgent as the global credit crunch began to bite into the real-estate sector with the possibility of foreclosure by the banks on the developers who still hold titles.

The average wait for title deeds in Cyprus is 10-15 years, and there are around 100,000 home owners still waiting, 30,000 of whom are foreigners.

Answering on behalf of the government, Lord Malloch-Brown said the British High Commission had raised the issue with the Cyprus government.

Cyprus economic forecast not so good

The Cyprus Finance Ministry has cut its economic forecasts in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Charilaos Stavrakis has said that the ministry projects economic growth of 2.1% as its central scenario, and 2.6% as an optimistic scenario instead of 3.0% provided for in the 2009 budget.

Despite the downward revision, Stavrakis said that both the finance ministry and the government have set a target that Cyprus will present, in 2009, the highest growth rate in the euro area which is expected, according to EU Commission figures, to present negative growth of 0.9%.

"The international financial crisis indeed is getting worse and this inevitably affects an open economy as that of Cyprus. However, we continue to believe that we will have very satisfactory growth rates," Stavrakis told a press conference.