The Nicosia Municipality has raided the city and identified a new batch of emergency buildings.
Uninhabitable objects were scattered in different districts of the capital.
However, the largest number is concentrated closer to the city center, on the streets: Aristokipru, Constantine Paleologou, Hippokratos, Theokritou, Arsinois and Athenon. A total of 10 sites were recognized as dangerous. Municipality officials urged the owners of these buildings to contact the technical services to take appropriate measures. Otherwise, they face a fine of up to 20 thousand euros or criminal prosecution.
Recall that over the past three years, employees of the municipality of Nicosia conducted 6 raids, which revealed several violations concerning the operation of the capital's housing.
The inspectors found more than 350 emergency buildings. All of them were declared uninhabitable. The owners of such real estate were sent warning letters. However, many of them remained unanswered. Of the 330 dilapidated buildings, only 170 have had the danger removed either as a result of work carried out by the owners or after the municipality intervened. According to the local authorities, in about 85 of the above-mentioned cases, administrative fines were issued to the owners of dangerous buildings who did not comply with the legal requirements.
By the way, according to the current rules, if the owner of a dilapidated building does not respond to a notice from the municipality, and the object is a danger to the city and its residents, requires immediate repair, the municipality takes over the elimination of all deficiencies.
After renovation, the agency has the right to demand repayment of financial expenses from the owner. In practice, it is not always possible to recover money from an unscrupulous owner. In other words, while the benefits of property ownership remain private, the costs become collective. Over the past two years, the Nicosia municipality has spent about 500 thousand euros on the renovation of dilapidated buildings in the city.
It is worth noting that at one of the meetings of the Parliamentary Committee, a proposal was put forward to create a special fund that could generate money to help local municipalities. Thus, they would not have to constantly empty the budget funds for the modernization of dilapidated buildings and sue unscrupulous owners.
According to the idea, the fund should deal not only with the distribution of funds but also with the collection of repair costs from the owners of dilapidated buildings. It is not yet clear whether the proposal to create such a fund will be approved in Cyprus, but the expediency of the idea is quite obvious.