Filenews 18 February 2025
No law, article of the Constitution, or other provision imposes a statutory duty on the Land Registry to inform the buyer or his representative, when filing the contract, of the existence of an earlier contract of sale, the Court of Appeal ruled.
In an announcement by the Legal Service, it is stated that interesting legal findings in a real estate case are included in a decision of the Court of Appeal, but also in a recent relevant decision of the Supreme Court.
In particular, it is added, the Supreme Court rejected the application for permission to register, before it, legal questions from an affected purchaser of immovable property, which, according to the latter's claims, arose from the decision of the Court of Appeal to uphold the decision of the District Court that there is no duty on the part of the Land Registry to inform, when filing a contract of sale with the Land Registry, the buyer for previous sales contracts that may already be filed on the specific property.
The occasion, the Legal Service continues, was a citizen's lawsuit against the Department of Lands and Surveys that, when filing an apartment purchase agreement on his behalf, the Land Registry had failed to inform him, as it should and/or had a duty to do according to his claim, that the apartment in question had already been sold to a third party.
It states that the District Court that examined the case held that negligence was not proved nor could negligence be established on the part of the Land Registry in filing the said agreement, since no legislative provision imposed a duty on the Land Registry to inform the buyer of previous purchase and sale documents, nor had the buyer himself made use of the legal provision for the submission of the said agreement, since no legislative provision imposed a duty on the part of the Land Registry to inform the buyer of previous purchase and sale documents, nor had the buyer himself made use of the legal provision for the submission of the said agreement. on behalf of the Land Registry, provision of information on the property to the buyer or any other interested person before the submission of the sales contract.
It adds that the Court of Appeal agreed with the correctness of the District Court's decision, which, upholding the judgment of first instance, indicated that no law, article of the Constitution, or other provision imposes a statutory duty on the Land Registry to inform the purchaser or his representative, when filing the contract, of the existence of a previous contract of sale. Also, according to the Court of Appeal, no negligence was proved in relation to the acceptance of the contract of sale, since the Land Registry did not have the right to refuse to deposit a contract that the buyer himself requested to be filed once the conditions for its filing were met, in accordance with the Sale of Land (Special Execution) Law, as in force before its repeal.
It is also noted that with regard to the Supreme Court's decision not to accept the registration, by the affected buyer, of a series of legal questions which, according to the latter, arose from the decision of the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court considered that through the application permit submitted to it, an attempt was being made to reopen the case for discussion of issues in which the Supreme Court had no reason to intervene and this, because of the affected buyer's disagreement with the decision of the Court of Appeal.
The Attorney General of the Republic was represented by Despina Kourousidou, Lawyer of the Republic A'.
