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Greece Will Take Jobless Man's Home

550_334_266099A 39-year-old unemployed Greek father, whose apartment had been saved from foreclosure only because of a law – soon to be lifted – preventing confiscation of a main home – has lost it to the Greek government because he couldn’t afford to pay his taxes and social security debts.
All he could do, he said, was write a letter of complaint to Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras, who wants to allow banks after Jan. 1 to also take homes away from people who can’t pay their mortgages because of crushing austerity measures being imposed by the government on the orders of international lenders.
The unidentified man, said to be a member of the Association of Borrowers and Consumer of Northern Greece, wrote Stournaras: “The public sector has become more ‘predatory’ than banks. And even if you managed to save the house from the bank … I could not do the same regarding my obligations towards taxes or insurance fund.
“And so it happened: the seizure process of my house has been proceeded and it’s a matter of time to go ahead and auctioning it. My house was up for sale about 24,000 euro total debts to the tax office and social security fund,” he wrote.
“I do not expect you to sympathize with me. However, you are adept in managing financial issues; please suggest a way to ensure the survival of my family under these circumstances. But it is very likely you not be able to find a sustainable job immediately. Probably I will be soon unable to sustain and this rented house. Then, I would like to inform you that I will send to you the keys of my house and my four children to raise them too! “.
When the tax office in Thessaloniki went after the apartment he owned the desperate man rented another house after he sent the keys to the apartment he owned to the tax department, he said.
He had been working as a freelance plumber and his wife worked with crafts until her company moved to Bulgaria in 2005. He said they have both been unemployed for five years but didn’t say if he had any source of income at all.
The couple got a 160,000 euros loan to buy the apartment in Thessaloniki before the financial crisis. He was paying the installments until they both lost their jobs and his tax debt grew as well.
The couple and their four children managed to survive thanks to assistance of the church and eat at the soup kitchen. There was no explanation as to how he rented an apartment without any income.

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