Dreams of a home in cyprus turn into a nightmare

When Steve Noonan, a legal adviser for Cleveland Police, bought his two-bedroom apartment off-plan at the Cypriot development of St Nicolas in the town of Chloraka, near Paphos for only £160,000 in 2008, it seemed too good to be true.

"And the problem is, it was too good to be true," he says, particularly when a debt collection agency in the UK started sending him letters, texts and phone calls demanding mortgage repayments on his Cypriot property, or his family home in Skelton, Yorkshire and other assets would be repossessed by bailiffs.

The deal involved a UK-based agent, the major Greek and Cypriot Alpha Bank, and the Cypriot developer Alpha Panareti. Mr Noonan and his wife Eugenie say they were told that repayments to Alpha Bank would be only £560 a month through a 25-year interest-only loan.

Source: Cyprus-Property-Buyers.com