My mother purchased a property from a property developer over three years ago, and, even though her contract had stated that completion would be 18 months, it is now only finally being completed.
Nothing new here, as this is Cyprus and we all know exactly what such contracts are worth.
My mother is a regular visitor to Cyprus and has been able to use her apartment though it is still a building site; she has always taken extreme care because of this fact. Recently they have finally started to lay the concrete that will be the road and the parking area, and in the stages of laying the concrete, have dug large holes, added spikes in the ground with no visible warning signs or cautionary measures, even though there are now a few families living on the complex.
My mother tripped over a spike that had not been there on the many trips back and forth to the apartment and fell against rough concrete. The end result was a severe cut to the palm of the hand (six stitches), a split upper lip (four stitches), loss of four front teeth and a bad cut on the leg, resulting in further stitches.
If the project had been completely finished as per contract none of this would have happened.
Also, an elderly woman owning one of the unfinished villas on the site has since died and will never realise her dream home, the family are now desperate to sell the property to pay the expenses of their mother’s death.
Now we are in the EU, surely there must be some channels of the legal system to protect buyers. There must surely be a health and safety act to consider, along with 101 other laws that have possibly been violated, not just in this case but in many others all around the island.
I love the island and have been here for some time now and married into a Cypriot family. But many people feel the same way and every year more and more people are purchasing ‘their dream property in the sun’. I just wonder were the dream ends and the nightmare begins?
It’s about time that builders and developers woke up and smelt the roses instead of making false promises and burying their heads in the sand!
Dave Roach, Paphos
Copyright © Cyprus Mail
