Three families knocked on the door of a Nicosia-area home on Easter Saturday, April 11, arriving at different times to inspect the property, unaware that the house’s residents — the daughters of a separated woman identified as L.S. and their father — had no idea the home was being auctioned off that coming Tuesday.
One of the daughters fainted when she learned the house was up for sale, L.S. told Phileleftheros, citing the shock compounded by existing health problems. “We were trying to manage the situation and save the house, and we didn’t say anything to the children,” she said.
Her estranged husband has also been suffering from health problems that have left him unable to work, she added. “For us, the day of the Resurrection became a day of crucifixion,” she said.
The loan and the debt
L.S. says her estranged husband took out a loan of 160,000 euros to build the family home. When the 2013 financial crisis hit, she says, his business collapsed, and the debt began to grow. She claims the loan was subject to abusive clauses and interest rates of 12% and 17% applied at different stages, making repayment impossible.
A debt management company subsequently acquired the non-performing loan and froze the husband’s entire property portfolio, she says, imposing what she describes as very high penalty clauses.
She says a field owned by her husband was sold for 264,000 euros and another plot for 250,000 euros, but claims the debt was not reduced as a result. The husband also holds other plots and immovable property, but these remain frozen due to the debts, according to L.S.
The loan case was brought before a court, which issued a consent judgment in favour of the debt management company.
The appeal to the President
With the auction scheduled for April 21, L.S. wrote to President Nikos Christodoulides asking him to intervene — not to write off the debt, she said, but to secure a delay so she could negotiate directly with the company handling the sale before the deadline.
She has already submitted an offer of 250,000 euros to buy the property, she told Phileleftheros. The auction for the home, which is located in an area where land prices are high, starts at 250,000 euros, according to the source.
In her letter to the President, L.S. wrote: “On Easter Saturday, April 11, 2026, to my great surprise, I learned from prospective buyers who came to view the house that the property had already been listed for sale on the website of the property management company. I kindly ask you to intervene so that I am given the opportunity to negotiate directly with the company before April 21, 2026, the deadline for offers, with a view to purchasing the property before it is sold to another interested party. If not, my family and I will have no home to live in.”`
L.S. told Phileleftheros she comes from a family that became trapped following the 1974 invasion. She crossed into the free areas alone at the age of 11. “I lived in a hostel and only God knows what we went through to get back on our feet, and today, whatever the Turks didn’t take, we risk losing in the free areas,” she said. “I don’t care about myself, but about my children,” she added.
