Man remanded over house scam

THE owner of a Paphos land developing company was yesterday remanded for five days for allegedly receiving deposits on property and selling it to another buyer.
The man was arrested on Tuesday night in Paphos. He allegedly sold the same house to various people and is thought to have collected large sums of money in deposits — and in some cases the full amount – from 2001-2003.

CID investigations revealed that the allegedly sold the houses mostly to Greek Pontians, who signed sale documents, which he then filed to the Land Registry Department.

“We are extremely disappointed because we paid a lot of money; money that we saved over the years for this purpose, and it’s an amount that is now gone,” one buyer said.
In one case the developer took a deposit of £20,000, but when the buyer paid the rest of the money, he discovered that the house was already was sold to someone else. In three other cases, the suspect is said to have closed deals with three buyers for the sale of three apartments under construction, and the CID found that in all three cases two sets of sale documents were filed in the Land Registry Department.

The suspect faces charges of forgery and distribution of forged documents, embezzlement and taking money under false pretences.

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