Trev in Cyprus.

[trevnhil]

Well I think I am going to have to go out and find something a little happier to talk about or take pictures of in Cyprus.

I am becoming aware that my posts are full of gloom.

Today seems no different unfortunately. We returned to the Land office and asked how our file was getting along. George, who we spoke to said he had been on the case and that he had been in touch with the Planning office and we should go there and enquire.

So off we went to see Andreas in the planning department . You will note that we are all on first name terms now, for all the good it seems to be doing.

Andreas said that the plans would go before the committee for a decision to be made and it could be yes, or it could be no. I asked how long this would take and he said about week. So we have to bite our nails until we return to see him next week.

Cheers. Trev..

[WillowTheWhisp]

Good luck with that. Fingers crossed and lets hope the answer is yes.

Thanks for the aerial photo. I now understand the loction and the road and it seems like it is certainly going to be beneficial to you, once you actually get permission to build your house.

[trevnhil]

It certainly will be of benefit. But we are living in fear of the decision going against us. And yet we cannot see a reason for a refusal to build.

Soon be Wednesday

Trev..

[trevnhil]

Well good afternoon All. It has gone past Noon here as we are two hours ahead of you.

Well if you read my last post, you will see that I was living in fear and trembling as to what news we may have got from the planning committee this morning.

We went to see the man at the Planning office this morning. We have spoken with him before, and he took our application number and went off to see someone.

When he came back he said. "No problems, you have been given permission to build and the paperwork is in the post"

So this is the first hurdle successfully cleared. When the granted application is received through the post we will then have to meet with our architect and see what the next step is.

We know this first 'YES' says only that we are allowed to build on our plot of land. We now have to get permission to build exactly what we want on the plot. We don't foresee a problem as we are allowed to build up to 10% of the size of the plot. The plot is 2,450sq mts and we want to use about 185sq mts for a building. Well within the 10% rule.
We want to build a bungalow which is only one story high, so we cannot see an objection there, And the design of the bungalow is just an ordinary ex pat English style bungalow.
It will be Similar (but not identical) to this picture here....



We are really relieved that this Giant Step has at last been achieved.

Cheers all. From a relieved Trev in Cyprus.

[musky]

Well done Trev glad to hear you have got the thumbs up. Any idea how long it will take to build. ?

[accykeef]

Congrats Trev - that news has been a long time coming.
I hope you can get your chisels out soon.

[trevnhil]

Thank you for your good wishes. I do have a full set of tools here with me and hope to reuse them some day.

Regarding how long it would take to build........ I am not sure but would think around 6 months. But there is a lot to do before the build starts. We would be very happy if we were in by the 2010 Christmas. But the quicker the better for everyone. The builder would get his money sooner and we would stop paying rent sooner as well

We have the detailed plans of the building done but I believe there is a detailed plan of electrics to work out and also the insulation has to be shown and calculated.

Even applying for electricity can take a year. And bear in mind we are out half a mile into the fields. However the are electricity lines within about 150mts of our plot.

As always in Cyprus it will no doubt be ...'Slowly Slowly'

[trevnhil]

Hi All.
Well you can imagine what is occupying our thought at the moment. And being retired and having spare time (I know some haven't) I have built the bungalow on the plot..... That's it in the far distance. It's only Photo 'magic'........ at the moment.



Trev.. ;D

[trevnhil]

Hi All.
Well it is only two days since we learnt that we had permission to build on our plot of land. But already only two days later things are happening on two fronts. Firstly the picture in the last post was taken on the 10th of September. Since then the builder has laid the kerbs and pavements and graded the roads with stone. They are now ready for the tarmac to be laid. Next week perhaps.





The second thing that has happened is that I rang our architect late this afternoon to ask if she had heard anything. She told me that the permission to build document had arrived at her office. I told her that we wanted to progress as quickly as possible and asked what the next step was. As I guessed we now have to apply for planning permission to build our bungalow.

This is exactly as it is on the plan earlier in the thread, but we now have to provide an Electrical engineers report. This will detail all the different points that we want and any other things like TV sockets etc.
This is to cost € 850. The same guy has to oversee all the electrics as they go in the bungalow. This is to cost € 450. Then we have to have an insulation report to show how thermally insulated we will be. This will cost € 170. We have organised a meeting for Wednesday next week when we will thrash all these things out.

I mentioned to the Architect that we had been told unofficially that people here in Cyprus do start the building process before the plans are passed. Our architect had to agree that this is what happens here.

So we need to get everything together so that we can go to a builder in the not too distant future and get a price for a bungalow.

Then and only then will we know.... IF WE HAVE ENOUGH MONEY ;D

Regards. Trev..

[WillowTheWhisp]

It looks like everything is taking off at last. The house style looks lovely. Can't wait to see the pic of the real 'Trev Res' one up there on that hillside.

The road is looking good.

[trevnhil]

Hi All.
Well tomorrow we are off to Limassol to see our (lady) architect. We are also out in the evening to a meal at a taverna with 50 members of a Cyprus forum where I am a prominent resident.
Because I will have little spare time tomorrow I thought I would add a post tonight.
As you know we will be building in the country away from other buildings. This means that there are no telephone lines in the vicinity, and we wondered what to do about getting broadband. There is a company here that provide wireless broadband, to and from a radio type mast. I met the man that runs it this morning and we went to our plot. Yes he said... we will be in line of site to a new mast that they are erecting in the near future. So that is another major problem sorted.

Tomorrow we will be meeting with the Electrical engineer and we were told to bring our ideas as to how many and the positions of lights and sockets.
I haven't counted them up.... I daren't.

This is the electrical plan ......



I will update again later in the week.

Regards. Trev..

[trevnhil]

Hi All.

Just a quick update on the visit to our Architects at Limassol. The journey takes about an hour but is mainly traffic free.

When we got there we were introduced to a very nice gentleman who was called Savvas, and spoke perfect English. We had taken the plan in the last post and we discussed it in great detail for about 2 hours. Our plan was about 80%the same as his plan, which was pretty good. His extra 20 % included extra outside lights. Provision for an alarm system, and even lights in the false roof.

He asked if we knew where we were going to get the electricity from, and of course I had researched this. There is a pole with a transformer on it just 150 mts away. I even took a picture to show him of the transformer, because I was worried that it would not run the multitude of appliances and sockets that we had planned. He said it would run our house and many others as well.



So probably on Friday I will go (in fear and trepidation) to the Electric board in Paphos and make an application for electricity to be supplied to our plot of land. One of the problems is the cost of the application..... see below

Procedure 1. Submit an application for electricity connection to Electric Authority of Cyprus and await an estimate of connection fees. Time to complete: 168 calendar days. Cost to complete: EUR 2,644.

That is only the cost of applying. There is still the cost of at least three poles being erected and the wires being put to the house.....



I will post more, when I know more. ;D

Cheers. Trev..

[WillowTheWhisp]

Wow that seems very expensive just to submit an application. How much will it cost to actually get the power lines up?

[trevnhil]

Well in theory it will be over 168 days before they are required to give me an estimate of the cast to supply me with electricity. However on an estimate gathered 2 years ago we are thinking around €4,000 which is about £3,600.

Trev..

[WillowTheWhisp]

Compared to the cost of the application that doesn't sound too bad.