YESTERDAY homeowners in Pissouri where a landslide continues to destroy their lives and homes met reporter George Odling and photographer Georgie Gilliard from the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper.

The two heard how the landslide had devastated many lives and put an enormous strain on people’s health, relationships and finances

Homeowners had sought medical help for the stress the situation is causing them, others had seen their marriage break apart, a mother with two young children whose marriage failed returned to the UK penniless and they are living in rented accommodation. She has applied for council housing and is currently on the waiting list.

One of the Cypriot families bought their Pissouri home with the aid of a mortgage from a bank. When it was damaged by the landslide, they asked the bank for a valuation. In 2015 the bank valued the property at €17,000 less €11,000 to remove the rubble, leaving them with €6,000. The valuer said he’d assessed the land as agricultural due to the geological problems in the area and noted (at that time)  that there was nothing wrong with the actual structure of the house. The bank reminded the family that, despite its low value, they had to repay their mortgage in excess of €200,000.

The landslide is moving daily. Homeowners have to endure constant breaks in their water, electricity and telephone supplies as the water pipes and cables continue break under the strain.

To date, seventeen homes in the affected area have been declared unfit for habitation and families have been forced to leave and find alternative accommodation.

Limnes: the red herring

The first area to be affected by the landslide was Limnes, which can mean lake when translated to English. This has given rise to numerous ‘fake news’ stories by elements of the media that the properties were built on land known for its lakes, which landowners filled in before selling, etc, etc. These stories are completely untrue. In fact Limnes is a relatively small part of the total area affected.

In addition to Limnes, the landslide affects other areas to the south of Pissouri village centre;  Sheromyli, Yiousouphis, Safires, Merika, Kalogeri, Merika, and Roes.

(Since I last visited the area in February, more homes have been affected. Kiminos street, which was passable in February, is now closed to traffic and the house at the top of the street close to the Pissouri amphitheatre, which was undamaged in February, looks close to collapse.)

Government response to the landslide

The Auditor General Odysseas Michaelides said that the complex was sold by “a single, well-known land development company which will now be relieved of its responsibilities”; this is patently untrue. (As he has not visited the area to see the damage for himself, I can only assume that he’s been given inaccurate information.)

The properties were designed and built by numerous architects, building contractors and property developers. (Some of those involved in the construction of the older properties have since died.) Independent structural checks carried out on the properties show there is no evidence of poor design or construction.

The Pissouri Housing Initiative Group (PHIG) commissioned an independent study by internationally recognised experts who concluded it’s a landslide triggered by uncontrolled groundwater and this was backed up by InSAR satellite imagery and analysis. A copy of this 22-page report, which contains the overwhelming and irrefutable evidence, is available on-line ‘Proving a landslide: ground behaviour problems at Pissouri, Cyprus‘ for US$30.

Reporter’s thoughts

After George and Georgie completed their interviews and tour, I asked George for his thoughts on what he’d seen.

“It’s a lot worse than I imagined.” He said. “Photographs can only tell you so much but seeing it in real life; it’s striking” adding that “It’s incredibly tragic to see what were obviously beautiful homes that people looked to spend the rest of their lives in under the Mediterranean sun crumbling like this”.

I asked him what he thought of the lack of support from the government. As he had yet to speak to the Interior Minister, he couldn’t comment. But he did say “It’s obviously disappointing that people feel they didn’t have the help they expected and feel they’re on their own.”

The full story should be published in the UK’s Daily Mail early next week.

The Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is the second largest selling newspaper in the UK. It has twice the readership of the ‘Daily Mirror’ and three times the readership of ‘The Times’. The Daily Mail also has the second largest on-line readership of any of the UK national newspapers.

A PROTEST aimed at warning the British public not to buy properties in Cyprus took place on Saturday outside a major property exhibition in London.

A small group of people who had bought property in Cyprus gathered outside the Olympia in London where A Place in the Sun Live was taking place. Two Cypriot companies were among those taking part.

The aim of the protest was to warn off potential buyers from investing in Cyprus citing their own unfortunate cases that include homes destroyed in an ongoing land-slippage in Pissouri, Swiss Franc house loans and a double selling fraud.

The organiser of the protest is Conor O’Dwyer, who is the midst of a 14-year legal battle after buying a property in Cyprus in 2005 only for the developer to sell his house to another British family at a higher price. According to O’Dwyer not only was the original sale to him registered with the land registry department, but the developer also kept the money he had paid.

The protesters, holding placards saying ‘Do not buy property in Republic of Cyprus’, handed out flyers to potential buyers as they went inside the exhibition.

The event is the official exhibition of the Channel 4 TV series A Place in the Sun and, according to its organisers, “the largest overseas property exhibition in Europe”. It was described as the perfect place to seek guidance through the buying process for a purchaser to find their “dream properties” abroad.

On Saturday morning, a discussion was also held at the exhibition on buying property in Cyprus.

O’Dwyer said that the protesters were engaging with British buyers but also with property companies from other countries and media from the property industry.

“Enough is enough, that’s the theme of the protest,” he said.

The leaflets explain to potential buyers the reasons why they shouldn’t buy in Cyprus.

“Because corruption (in Cyprus) is rife,” he said.

Contracts

Developers, he said, will tell exhibition visitors they are secured as long as their contracts are in the land registry.

“No. My contract is in the land registry and my property developer sold my house to another person at a higher price to profit more,” he said. “A court case in the Republic of Cyprus takes 13 years.”

Pissouri landslide

Some of the protesters are victims of the land slippage in Pissouri, he said.

One of the homes destroyed in the Limnes land-slippage

The case, which has received widespread publicity in recent months, involves homes built in the Limnes area of Pissouri which have fallen victim to a serious and continuing land slippage.

The land is now slipping at almost double the rate it did in 2015 when the movement was up to 40cm per year. By early March, five families had been evicted, while, according to lawyer for the home owners, Elina Zoi, 15 houses are considered dangerous but the owners continue to live in them as they have nowhere else to go. The land slippage is due to failure to provide adequate infrastructure to manage groundwater, and allowing development to go ahead in the area.

“House insurance does not cover landslides and it’s the government’s duty to help,” O’Dwyer said, adding that the only action from the government is forced evictions with the homeless British returning to the UK.

Swiss Franc loans

Another group at the protest are victims of the mis-selling of Swiss Franc loans to purchase homes in Cyprus.

“These contracts have been found as abusive by the EU and settled in other countries, but for some reasons the banks in Cyprus are holding out and are individually putting these people through hell as they go through courts,” O’Dwyer said.

Even the consumer protection service in Cyprus deemed these contracts abusive but these people are getting no help at all, he said.

This practice, he said, “has seen hundreds of Brits forced to give up their dream homes or face a decade of court action to retain it”.

The trend in borrowing in Swiss francs emerged in 2006, when Cyprus was a candidate for euro area membership. Those taking out loans in Swiss francs benefited from considerably lower interest rates compared to the then cost of borrowing in euros. But some four years ago, when the Swiss National Bank moved to unpeg the country’s currency from the euro, led to a sharp revaluation of the Swiss franc and many debtors saw their instalments going through the roof. A debtors’ association had said at the time some 11,000 people were affected and spoke of a scandal, arguing that banks at the time did not adequately inform customers of the exchange-rate risks in taking out loans in a foreign currency.

The aim of the protest, he said, was to inform everyone on what’s happened to them “and what’s happening to Brits every day over there in Cyprus”.

He expressed hope that their presence there would minimise “the danger to the British buying public” since there were only two Cyprus real estate agents at the exhibition.