Depositing the contract of sale at the Land Registry in Cyprus

This page explains the general rules as published by the Cyprus authorities on the date shown. Rates, thresholds and procedures change, and your position depends on facts we do not know. Before you act, confirm the figures with the Tax Department or the Department of Lands and Surveys and take advice from a lawyer registered with the Cyprus Bar Association or a licensed accountant.

What depositing the contract does#

Once a sale contract is signed, a copy is lodged at the District Lands Office of the district where the property lies. The law that governs this step is the Sale of Immovable Property (Specific Performance) Law, N. 81(I)/2011, which defines deposit as lodging a true copy of the contract with that office to create a charge in rem on the property.¹

That charge is what the step is for. Under section 5 of the Law, a deposited contract creates an encumbrance on the property, ranked in the order in which it was lodged.¹ It binds the property itself, so a later buyer, lender or creditor of the seller finds it on the Land Register (Ktimatologio) when they search. The Department of Lands and Surveys describes a deposited contract in the same terms, as an encumbrance on the property.³

Deposit does not transfer ownership. The seller stays the registered owner until the transfer is registered, which can be months or years later where a title deed has not yet been issued. The full sequence, from reservation to transfer, is on our how to buy property in Cyprus page.

The deadline and who files it#

Section 3 of Law 81(I)/2011 says the District Lands Office accepts a contract only if it is deposited within six months of the date it was signed.¹ The Department of Lands and Surveys states the same six-month limit and adds that a later deposit needs a court order allowing it.²

Two variations matter in practice:

• If no seller is yet registered as owner of the land that includes the property, the contract may be deposited within six months of the date that registration is made.¹
• In an exchange (antiparochi) contract, where a landowner trades land for finished units, the period for the landowner starts when the land is transferred to the developer.¹

Either party may deposit the contract.¹ The Department's application page adds that a lawyer acting for the buyer, or the registered estate agent who brokered the sale, may lodge it with the declaration or authorisation the Department asks for.² In most purchases the buyer's own lawyer files it, because the buyer is the person the charge protects.

A clause that forbids deposit, in a contract signed after the Law came into force, is void from the start.¹ A seller cannot contract out of it.

Stamp duty on the contract#

Until the end of 2025 a sale contract had to be stamped before it could be deposited.⁵ The Tax Department states that Law 239(I)/2025 abolished the Stamp Duty Laws 1963 to 2025 from 1 January 2026.⁵ The Department of Lands and Surveys therefore asks for stamping only where at least one party signed the contract before 1 January 2026.²

If you are depositing an older contract that one party signed in 2025 or earlier, ask your lawyer whether it was stamped.² The full list of costs on a purchase, including transfer fees and VAT, is on our costs of buying property in Cyprus page.

Documents the District Lands Office needs#

The Department of Lands and Surveys lists the following for the deposit of a contract of sale:

• the application form Δ.Ε.314, completed by the person depositing;²
• the contract with original signatures, stamped only if a party signed before 1 January 2026;²
• the cadastral plan, signed by the parties;
• floor plans signed by the parties, where the property is a unit in a building;
• a distribution agreement signed by all registered co-owners, where the sellers are not all of them;
• form Δ.Ε.307, a sworn declaration, where a party is a company;²
• a copy of both sides of the depositor's identity card, or a passport or Alien Registration Certificate for a foreign national;
• where a mortgage or an earlier deposited contract is already registered on the property, the written declaration (Form A) or the buyer's written consent (Form C).

For contracts signed after the 2023 amendment, the seller must attach a search certificate of the property to the contract as part of it.⁴ Law N. 132(I)/2023 came into force on 12 December 2023, and the certificate must be dated no more than five working days from the date the contract was signed.⁴¹ The certificate lists the mortgages, memos, prohibitions and other charges registered against the property on that date. What those entries mean is explained on our Cyprus title deeds explained page.

What a deposited contract protects, and its limits#

A deposited contract gives the buyer two things under Law 81(I)/2011.¹

1. Secured claim. Until a court orders specific performance or awards compensation, the charge secures whatever the buyer has paid towards the price at any given time.¹
2. Specific performance. Section 6 makes a contract capable of specific performance by court order if it was deposited under section 3 and the action is brought within the limitation period for breach of contract.¹ The court can then order the property registered in the buyer's name.

Where the property was already mortgaged before the contract was deposited, the Law sets out how the buyer's payments go to the lender so that the property can be released, using the forms in its schedule.¹ A lender that wilfully fails to do so can be fined by the Director of the Department up to €100,000.¹

The protection has limits. The charge secures only what you have paid, not the full value. It ranks behind any mortgage, memo or contract registered earlier, which is why the search certificate matters. And a court order is not yet a transfer: the Department states that a specific performance order must be lodged within one year of its date of issue, with a fee of €10.00 to accept the application and €5.00 per title deed per owner.⁶

After deposit: payments, completion and transfer#

Deposit happens early. Payments then follow the schedule in the contract, and each payment adds to the amount the charge secures.¹ Keep proof of every payment, because it is the evidence of what is secured.

The transfer of title is a separate act at the same District Lands Office. It takes place once a separate title deed exists for the property and the price is paid, and it is when transfer fees fall due. Until then the deposited contract is the buyer's main protection on the Land Register.

If you are buying from outside the European Union, the permission rules for non-EU buyers are on our can foreigners buy property in Cyprus page. The number of contracts deposited each month, by district, is set out on our Cyprus contracts of sale page. Terms used here, such as encumbrance and vesting contract, are defined in our Cyprus property glossary.