Author name: Christos Christou architecture studio

The list of exclusions that separates a plot that “doesn’t work” from one that does. Διαβάστε αυτό το άρθρο στα ελληνικά. It is the most common moment of disappointment in a first meeting. The owner works out their square metres, compares them with the house in their head, and comes up short. In most cases

The incentives that raise your building density — and the cap most people miss. Διαβάστε αυτό το άρθρο στα ελληνικά. Most plot owners look up the building density for their zone and stop there. They assume that is the number. In practice the zone’s density is the starting point, not the ceiling — and the

If your building permit was delayed, you may still qualify for the old — and far more generous — regime. But the clock is running. Διαβάστε αυτό το άρθρο στα ελληνικά. The old VAT regime for a primary residence was genuinely generous: 5% on the first 200 m² of buildable area, with no cap on

Short answer: as far as we can confirm, no, the Planning Amnesty Scheme closed to new applications on 23 June 2025. If you have unauthorised building work and were hoping to use it, you’ve likely missed the window, but you are not out of options. Here’s the current picture and what remains. Status check: This

Cyprus has introduced faster, designer-certified permit routes for straightforward projects. Where they apply, they can cut a lot of waiting one of them even issues the permit automatically if the authority misses its deadline. But they come with a strict eligibility list, and a single disqualifying feature on your plot puts you back on the

Buying a building for a different purpose than it was built for, a house you want to run as offices, or a ground-floor unit you want to turn into a café, sounds like a decorating job. Legally, it’s a change of use (Αλλαγή Χρήσης), and it needs permission. Here’s what’s actually involved, and where the

A planning permission is not permanent. It has a life, and if it expires before you build or before you take the next legal step, you can be left starting again. Worse, one very common assumption about extending a permit is flatly wrong, and it catches out owners and professionals alike. Here’s how validity actually

“It’s only small, surely I don’t need a permit?” It’s the most common assumption we hear, and it’s often wrong. This guide walks through the everyday jobs of an extra room, a pool, a fence, a pergola, a garden store, solar panels and tells you, in plain English, which need permission. First, two key ideas

This is one of the most-asked questions in Cypriot property and one of the most badly answered. You’ll find confident numbers online that are either out of date or quoted from a press release rather than the actual law. Here is the honest version, with the timeframes that are officially defined clearly separated from the

A plot in Cyprus can look perfect on a viewing and still be a poor place to build. What you can put on it, and whether you can build at all, is decided not by the view but by its zone, its title, and a handful of constraints that never show up in the estate-agent