British couple Simon and Jenny Phillips sold off everything to move into their luxury home in Cyprus in Armou, in the Paphos district, and live their dream of happy days under the Mediterranean sun. Instead, the earth opened up beneath them and reduced parts of their home to rubble. Now the couple and their teen daughters, who once enjoyed a large swimming pool and ocean views, are in ‘a cross between a building site and a warzone’ as their £200,000 home continues to slide downhill.
It took less than two years for the house to be destroyed after a rainy winter triggered landslides underneath it and caused large craters and a dangerous drop to form. Apart from the landholes, the garage tilted to 12 degrees.
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The family is now suing the Cypriot government for signing off on the doomed development. They say that the government should not have allowed JNM 4U, the developers, to build on the clay-based site in 2004 as an independent engineering report later found the soil to be problematic. The report indicated that the government was aware of the area’s ‘geological problems’ and still allowed developers to build without taking precautions to stabilise the area.
In 2014, the home was deemed ‘unfit for habitation’ but the family continue to live there though the other British families that bought homes there have already left.