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Despite never missing a payment, Elena Yasemidou is on the brink of losing her home. She's a victim, she says, of bureaucratic neglect and heartless inflexibility.
The 45-year-old single mother earns €26,000 a year, but was recently told she must pay €2,100 monthly to keep her home, a demand she calls impossible. Her struggle spans more than a decade and has intensified due to what she describes as the Housing Finance Corporation’s (HFC) repeated refusal to respond to emails, calls, or mediation attempts.
Yasemidou’s case, which was recently aired on Sigma TV’s “Protoselido,” began after a divorce forced her to navigate a convoluted legal and financial maze just to retain the house she was living in. A 2022 court order granted her ownership on the condition she would either sell the house or restructure a shared loan to release the co-owner, her ex-spouse, and pay him €400 monthly rent in the meantime.
Despite complying, the HFC failed to respond to her multiple restructuring proposals. Their silence led the co-owner to file a lawsuit against her; not for defaulting, but for not meeting the release deadline, which had become impossible without the agency’s cooperation.
“I kept paying what the court ordered. I followed every step,” Yasemidou said, “but the agency just disappeared.”
In a further blow, the HFC finally proposed a restructuring, but with a €2,100 monthly payment, calculated based on temporary rental income. Yasemidou says it’s a figure she simply cannot afford. She filed an objection and turned to the Financial Ombudswoman, Valentina Georgiadou, who found €92,000 of her debt, nearly a third, to be made up of excessive charges. She recommended the HFC reconsider. Instead, the agency rejected her findings, even while sharing the same legal representative as the ombudswoman, raising questions of conflict.
“I’m covering €1,400 in monthly expenses, plus legal fees and home maintenance,” Yasemidou said. “I don’t even live in the house. I rent somewhere else for €1,000, just to stay afloat.”
Her ordeal is further marred by failed attempts to qualify for government aid, rejected once for earning too little, and again for earning slightly too much.
“Their argument is that they’re not a bank,” Yasemidou said. “But there are court decisions showing they act like one and should be regulated like one.”
Now facing multiple lawsuits and rising legal costs, Yasemidou clings to what little hope remains. “All I’ve ever asked for,” she said, “is a fair deal and someone to answer the phone.”
