Cyprus Property Victims | Non-Performing Loans

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Cyprus Property Victims – Non-Performing Loans

The issue of Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) is big news in the ROC. We know from the ‘stealth’ mortgage legal cases going through the courts in north Cyprus that it is an issue in there too.

I wonder just how big an issue it is. With the culture of ‘don’t say anything about a bank’ in north Cyprus, there really is no way that Joe public will ever know. If you even dare imply such a thing, you will be hit with Bank Law 39/2001.

The very reason this law exists is proof enough that banks going ‘tits up’ is possible. I just wonder what would be discovered if every bank in the north Cyprus was audited without notice?

We know that many large builders have not made payments on loans, this in my opinion makes them NPL’s. Builders like

Armacon, Boyut, Kulaksiz, Sercem, Santa Fe to name some who appear to fit this category, but not all. In just the same way as many such NPLs in the ROC, builders/landowners used property/land already sold as security for these loans, and as in the ROC, the bank hold charges on the homes of the innocent. What may have seemed like a good idea at the time, must now seem like a nightmare to these banks who colluded in this practice. In some cases this already insecure security is more of a liability. The money the banks will have to spend in legal fees defending this questionable practice is only the tip of the iceberg. The value of that security is now so diminished it must seem like the worst deal they ever made. They may think they are savvy business people, but they did not see that coming.

Who can forget the trumpets and fanfares when Santa Fe restructured its already large loan into a humungus loan over a longer term. I just wonder how that is going?

Of course Joe Public will never know, on a need to know basis it is considered that Joe does not need to know. Of course that is wrong since if we did know, would we choose to do our personal banking with a bank that carried many of these NPLs?

Never give in never give up

Pauline Read

 

Comments are closed.