We went on an inspection trip to Paphos in Cyprus after visiting a sales event in Newcastle as we were interested in buying an overseas property.
We stated before and early on in our inspection trip that it was a propertly re-sale were interested in.
MRI convinced us that off plan was the way to go, and after initial reservation were convinced that this was a viable option, but we have since become aware that we were very much steam rollered into this direction by MRI.
We signed up to purchase a 1 bed apartment off plan just outside of Paphos through a developer called Paschali. MRI put us in touch with the developer for the transaction, and immediately followed this up by taking us to an 'independant lawyer'. We were encouraged by MRI to use this lawyer and put our faith in them, and despite reservations at the time were convinced that this was the normal course of events and we would have no problems in doing this. During the inspection visit we also signed power of attourney to to the lawyer in order to arrange the lawyer - again we were told that it was mandatory to use AlphaBank in Cyprus for the transaction.
Since returning home following the trip we have had doubts about the course of events and the commitments we have made.
We have since found out:
1. The lawyer is not independant from the developer at all, leaving us very vulnerable
2. It is poor advice to assign the lawyer in haste, unnecessary to sign power of attourney and not mandatory to use any particular lender
MRI have given us very poor advice, and in a very high pressured situation it is easy to make poor choices especially when being told that there are acting on your behalf to make the transaction easy for you. MRI were not acting on our behalf during any part of the inspection trip at all.
Since this MRI have distanced themselves from the entire transaction, stating that they can only do more for us should we sign up for their aftersales service.
We are now in a position where there is no progress with the build at all and MRI, Paschali developers and the lawyer are all ignoring our requests for information. We are currently going through the process of assigning our own independant lawyer to the case.
We feel that MRI pressured us into buying off plan, lied to us about the independant nature of the lawyer, were not open to us with advice about power of attourney and the mortgage, and have now distanced themselves from the whole case.
We have only recently found that there are many other disatisfied customers with both MRI and the lawyer.
We are very disappointed in all of this, worried about our investment and advise other people to steer well clear of all companies involved!
Kevin heslop
Newcastle
United Kingdom
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