‘Thugs intimidating Larnaca property owners to sell out’

Larnaca residents are reportedly being pressured to sell their homes to foreign property developers by being intimidated by “enforcers”, Akel MP Aristos Damianou alleged on Friday. Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, Damianou said two property owners had approached him personally to make the allegation. He said the properties are near the old stadium in the Skala neighbourhood, and that the men, in both cases foreign nationals, have been visiting properties belonging to Cypriots in the area behind the former GSZ stadium, using “unethical tactics”. Asked whether the alleged victims had reported such threats to the police, he declined to comment. Damianou, who chairs the House interior committee, raised the claims on Thursday, during a session on property purchases by foreign interests. He said the men were exerting pressure and improper practices to force residents out. The committee also heard allegations regarding “hidden contracts” at the land and surveys department. Damianou questioned how Cypriot land could be sold without the identity of the buyers being known, and said the issue raised doubts regarding transparency and the true owners of property. Speaking on Sigma TV, Damianou said, “business representatives, smartly dressed, are arriving with henchmen to secure owners’ consent to sell”. He said that where a sale agreement is eventually signed, a police complaint may never be filed, which left open the question of how consent was obtained. He said large buyers seek to assemble significant plots of land by making offers to owners, and that families in financial difficulty were, in cases he was privy to, offered more than double the value of their property; He referred to such practice as a “moral blackmail”. Damianou said six to seven in every ten sales in coastal cities involve foreigners or foreign interests. “Cyprus is being sold out,” he said, and asked whether this was what the country wanted to leave to future generations. On legislation, Damianou said talks on regulating property purchases by foreign interests have resumed, with the aim of passing a law before the end of the year.