Finished, but not deliverable: homes without electricity

Finished homes are standing empty because they cannot be connected. The buyers who paid for them are left waiting for a delay they did nothing to cause.By Eleni Philippou, Senior Partner, Philippou Law Firm The buildings are finished, the buyers have paid and the keys are ready. All that is missing is the electricity. This is happening across Paphos, and quite possibly elsewhere, and buyers are finding that the delivery date in their contract depends on someone who never signed it. We have a case where the application to the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) was made in 2024. The building is almost complete and the buyers are due to move in at the end of November 2026. According to the developer, by the middle of October the EAC had not even started work on the connection. Almost two years and counting Many new developments are built on land only recently divided into building plots, where there is no electricity network at all. The EAC has to design a network, obtain the neighbours’ consent and then build it. Each stage is handled by a different department, and none of them starts until the one before has finished. We act for many buyers of off plan and under construction properties, and we see every day where this process ends up. Several developers tell us that the EAC currently takes four to six months to give its views while the land is being divided. Its studies department then needs eight to ten months to prepare the plans. The neighbours’ consents take one to two months, longer if one of them cannot be traced. The EAC’s terms follow some two months later, and only once there is a building permit. Building the network takes another eight to ten months, and the inspection a further month. That is two to two and a half years in all, longer than it takes to build many of the houses. The accelerated route We are told there is an accelerated route, at a price. A developer who pays the EAC an acceleration fee, so that the work is done outside normal working hours, can have the studies completed in about a month and the network built in two or three. That is the theory. Lately, developers willing to pay are being told there are not enough staff or materials. In one case we have been told about, the developer paid the EAC an acceleration fee of more than €40,000 over two months ago. The construction works have not even started. Once they do, it will take around two more months before the building is connected. The developer paid to go faster, and the buyers will still wait four to five months for electricity. I cannot blame anyone for paying. But I find it hard to accept as normal a public service that works at two speeds, and the extra cost does not disappear. Sooner or later, it ends up in the price the buyer pays. The EAC would no doubt say that demand has risen and some equipment is hard to get. It would also be right to say that some developers promise delivery dates they cannot keep, and that some apply to the EAC late. In those cases, the buyer’s claim is against the developer and rightly so, but they are not what this article is about. Here the application was made on time and the buyer is still waiting. If the studies stage can be done in a month once overtime is paid, that suggests most of the eight to ten months is spent waiting in the queue. Not having enough people to clear that queue in normal working hours is a management decision. The party missing from the contract A contract of sale has two parties, the developer and the buyer. It sets a delivery date and usually a penalty if that date is missed. The EAC is not a party to it. Its own customer charter does promise a quotation within 30 working days, with compensation of €34.17 if it is late, but only where supply can come from the existing network. A new development that needs a new network is excluded. So the dispute ends up between the buyer and the developer. Buyers are claiming the penalties for late delivery, and many are right to. Developers often reply that the delay was caused by the EAC and amounts to “force majeure”. Whether that defence succeeds depends on the wording of the contract, because Cyprus law has no general rule of force majeure. Unless the clause expressly covers delays by public authorities or utility providers, a vague reference to “events beyond the developer’s control” is open to argument. A buyer left with a finished home he cannot move into has plainly been treated unfairly. Whether a developer who applied on time should also carry the cost is a harder question. But a contract can only divide the loss between those who signed it. It cannot reach the one party actually responsible. Water Water is no better. Since the local government reform of 2024, water supply has been the responsibility of the new district local government organisations (EOA). They took over from the old water boards, municipalities and communities, along with their backlogs and, in places, an ageing network. A water meter for a new house used to be granted within a few days. In some districts, Paphos among them, it can now take several months. So much for progress. What can be done Very few developers are willing to say any of this publicly. They depend on the EAC and the EOA for every project, and they fear that if they complain, their applications will somehow find their way to the bottom of the pile. Buyers rarely know who to complain to at all. That is one of the reasons I decided to write this article. The EAC and the EOA could start by publishing the timeframes they commit to at each stage, including for new networks, so that someone is accountable when they are missed. The real improvements would have to come from within the EAC, and I do not think they would be difficult. I went through the whole process with an electrical engineer who deals with these applications daily. According to him, three stages are holding everything up, and at each one the cause is a shortage of people. Start with the construction of the network. The digging and other building work needed to extend the network is carried out by external contractors, and as far as we are told, there is only one in each district. Whatever the exact number, it is clearly not enough. Every new development in the district, whether a single house or fifty apartments, waits for the same crews to become available. More contractors, especially in a small district like Paphos, would make a very noticeable difference. Before any of that, the plans submitted with each application have to be checked by qualified EAC staff, and there are not enough of them for the number of applications coming in. A file that sits at this early stage holds up everything after it, so even a few more reviewers would be felt all the way down the line. At the other end comes the final inspection. Once the installation is finished, nothing is connected until the EAC’s own inspectors have visited, and there is no way to hurry them. While everyone waits for an inspector to become free, the building stands complete and empty and the buyers’ moving date keeps slipping. No new law is needed for any of this, only enough staff at the points where the files are piling up. When a developer has paid an acceleration fee and is then told there are not enough staff to start the work, the problem is not hard to identify. In every one of these cases there is a family that has paid for a home and cannot live in it. Many are paying rent and a mortgage at the same time. Some have already sold the house they were living in, or given notice on their rental, on the strength of a delivery date that nobody can now guarantee. Until something changes, buyers will keep arguing over penalties under contracts which name everyone except the one party who could actually turn the lights on. Eleni Philippou LLB, LLM, TEP, Advocate, Senior Partner, Philippou Law Firm www.philippoulaw.com This article provides general information only and does not constitute legal advice.