07.03.2022
While homes in Pissouri that were either destroyed or severely damaged by the ongoing landslide are still collapsing, lenders have asked some owners who took out loans to buy their affected homes to resume payments.
“It’s like rubbing salt on an open wound,” an injured local resident told the Sunday Mail this week.
The demand to resume payments is an additional pressure on homeowners in a development southwest of the village of Pissouri itself. Some houses almost collapsed as a result of the continuous and accelerating landslide and were declared uninhabitable. Houses, gardens and pools are torn apart, walls and driveways crumble, roads are broken, twisted and impassable.
The couple, who bought their “dream” home in 2014, were unaware of any problems in the area and have invested all their money in their property, which they cannot live in but must now pay off the mortgage.
“For the last two years, we have only paid interest on the mortgage, and now the bank wants us to start paying off the loan. Now we are trying to negotiate with them, ”said the couple, who wished to remain anonymous.
They were forced to leave their home and move into rented accommodation after their home was declared uninhabitable as a landslide threw waste from broken pipes into the ground and caused other problems. “I had to go back to work full-time so we could afford to rent an apartment somewhere, and we still have to pay property insurance in case of injuries,” the wife said.
The couple can no longer live in their three-bedroom home with 180-degree panoramic sea and mountain views. It is now twisted by three meters and partially sunk due to a landslide, with a crack in the ground that destroyed both sides of the house and affected their garden and pool.
According to them, the house itself was built on a concrete plinth, so it did not fall apart, unlike older houses in the area.
“We were issued an eviction order even though we spent thousands on renovations to fix problems as they arose as we wanted to stay in our home. This is our only property and we are devastated.”
Heavy rains this winter heightened concerns about further impacts on the area.
“We would like to be compensated and buy property somewhere else in Cyprus where the land is safe. But we would consider staying at our house if they could stabilize everything.”
Some Pissouri residents are skeptical of the government’s plans to stabilize the area anyway, noting that the landslide has been going on for about 10 years and that it will take at least the same amount of time to stabilize it again, and that the necessary pumping has not even started yet.
“Nothing has been fixed yet, and it is short-sighted to think that this is the case. It will take several years to see if the area can be stabilized and the ground will continue to move for some time after the water is pumped out of the area,” said local resident Simon Carroll, who also has engineering experience.
Together with his wife, the owner of the house has not yet received an evacuation order and will refuse to do so anyway.
The couple’s four-bedroom home, complete with “grandmother’s apartment,” was once a million-euro property, he said, but now patios rise and fall and one corner of the house slopes about three percent. The driveway is crumbling and the first crack has appeared inside the property, in an unused spare room where daylight is now visible.
He repairs it and complains about the lack of information that the authorities are passing on to the residents.
“I’m not sure this ‘stabilization’ plan will work, however we want to stay until they make an offer, but no compensation has been mentioned yet,” he said.
