Lena Lenina was presented with a house by the sea, but they refused to build it

The socialite paid money, but never saw housing in Cyprus

The Russians, in a frenzy of buying up real estate in the West, are being scammed by local developers. One of the victims of deception was the famous socialite, writer and owner of nail salons Lena Lenina. Details of the scam “MK” learned first hand.

Lena Lenina bought herself an apartment in Cyprus in 2019. “Sea, sun and summer in winter – isn’t this happiness?” Approximately so the secular lioness reasoned on joys. Then she entered into an official contract with the owner of the company, made 40% of the cost of the apartment in advance, and at her wedding in Moscow, the president of this company gave her the remaining 60% in the presence of Larisa Dolina, Kostya Tszyu, Nonna Grishaeva and forty other stars and hundreds of businessmen. The fact that the apartments were handed over became the property of gossip columns and got into many media. To celebrate, Lena began to praise the ill-fated development company in all her social networks and “made her a lot of advertising.” According to the contract, the house was to be built in a year. But not a year later, not two, not even four, not today, the house never appeared. And recently, the new president of the company sent Lenina an SMS that the contract with her was invalid. Apparently, the excitement of Russian buyers in Cyprus has recently been so great that every developer wants to sell everything he can, even if not built, for five times more.

– We often scold Russian negligent developers and sincerely believe that Western developers are decent and comply with every letter of the law. And here it is not, – the injured Lena Lenina told MK. – Be careful and do not get involved with unscrupulous companies. Check reputation. And definitely never buy according to the plan or at the level of the excavation. They can throw as soon as prices rise! By the way, many real estate agents warned me not to contact this company. But I was led by the sugary assurances of their Russian-speaking sales directors, who assured me of the crystal honesty of the developer. In general, my lawyers will understand! Lenin warned. As our president would say about a “warm place abroad”: “We wanted the sea, but now?”

REFERENCE “MK”:

Interest in real estate in Cyprus in 2022 alone increased by 15-20%. In part, Russians prefer Cyprus because of the program of “golden visas”. After the countries of Europe became less accessible to Russians due to problems with the transfer of funds and the “toxicity” of Russian passports. Sellers of overseas property set a benchmark: last year Cyprus accounted for 14% of all inquiries, Portugal – 8%, Greece – 6%, Malta, Spain and the UK – 4% each. The most popular new countries for buying foreign real estate from Russians were the UAE, Cyprus and Turkey, such areas were named by the Financial Times.