UPDATE :

Help Us Spend Christmas in Our Home, Not Homeless

After nearly a year of hard work, meetings and saving money, we’ve successfully reached payment agreements with all but one creditor, with the help of a great lawyer.

Unfortunately, the tax authorities are refusing to accept a payment plan for the remaining €14.811 ,rendering all our efforts  to avoid loosing our home useless.

They are demanding full payment by December 24 or they will start the procedure to seize our home.

We’ve managed to save some money and offered it as a downpayment, but they are refusing.

Despite everything we tried and worked so hard for, we are still at risk of losing everything.

I am asking for your help to raise  €9.811. Please find it in your heart to support us in this final, desperate effort.

We are praying for this little Christmas miracle to happen for us.

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My name is Anica and I am 47 years of age . For 3 years now we have been fighting, every single day to regain financial stability. 

3 years of sleepless nights , anxiety , panic attacks and constant fear. 

Every day the worry - is it going to work out ? What if it doesnt ? Every day and night the fear to loose our house, our future, where would we go , would we end up homeless? 

3 years ago our world started to fall apart . 

Corona took our businesses , mine because I couldn't travel abroad as a self employed contractor for the hospitality and my husbands business as an self employed exporter and forwarder , because of harbor lock-downs, loss of goods that got stuck in the lock-downs and costumer bankruptcies that left us with unpaid bills from them and no money to pay our own bills. 

We lost almost all our income and our savings where melting like snow in the sun trying to keep up with bills.

 After 14 years of self employment it seemed to be impossible to get a job, no work history, no "skills", no diplomas to show in a country we barely spoke the language. The only jobs we found were badly paid and temporary. 

It helped pay bills and kept a roof over our heads, but it was never enough. 

We fought , we learned new skills and got other jobs , a bit better paid every time. 

We minimized spending, but had a lot of contracts and business expenses we could not get out of. 

Contracts needed to be paid , insurances, the storage place , until the contract times expired . 

The fees for not fulfilled contracts, as some goods got stuck in harbors that were on lock-down and the fees for "parking" those goods at the harbors, nothing was covered by the insurance, as nobody had ever foreseen such a situation and they didn't pay out.

And then there were still the taxes and communal bills. 

At the end of 2020 we had lost all our savings and were neck deep in debts. 

We were paying of little by little ,we had negotiated the amounts with creditors and made payment agreements. 

We stuck tightly to our budget plan to be able to reduce our debts as fast as possible. 

Step by slow step we were finding back our footing. 

And then the next strike , my husband broke down - emotionally and mentally, as well as physically. 

It had been hard for both of us , but I think for him it hit even worse, loosing his dad and a niece to Corona and not being able to say Goodbye, due to lock-downs and travel-restrictions. 

What compounded upon this, was that the only jobs he could get where physicall very demanding and his body couldnt take it anymore. 

He had developed Depression, sleeping problems and physical problems with his back and knee. 

He had to quit working to recover and to focus on getting better. While doing so he went back to learning skills online, helping out with the things he could do and working on his company again, to maybe revive it. 

This reduced our incoming money drastically and we had to renegotiate a few payment agreements to be able to keep paying our running bills. 

We managed . 

And then things got worse. A technical issue with our bank caused a delay in one of our paymentagreements, leading to seizure of my salary. 

Even though they paid it back as it was not our fault , the temporary lack of money snowballed into more agreement paid late and creditors cancelled agreements and demanded full repayment.

We reached out to the county for help and got assistance from debt help and a "pause" of payment for 2 month , during which we could figure out where to go from here.

 We do not qualifying for a loan , because of our debts and the County cant help us with a credit to pay the debtors, as we own a house. 

There is the option to come up with 30.000 to be able to negotiate with the creditors to settle for a part payback and then we are free of debts or at least have the chance to pay the remainder in installments. 

But here is the problem , we dont have 30.000 Euro or the means to get it . We checked with banks , lenders , nobody wants to lend us money as we are a “ risk ” and dont make enough money. 

We could come up so far with 3450 Euro but that is all .

 Friends and family have given what they can and we sold everything we could.

Now I am sitting here , at 4:30 in the morning, looking around the house , thinking , we will loose all this … 

Its not an expensive house or big and still needs a lot of work, but we worked hard to be able to get it and its our home. 

I cant help but to feel bone deep fear . We are 47 and 50 years old . 

This will destroy us, we will end up homeless. 

I have never asked for anything in my life before, but I am asking now . 

Please find it in your heart to help us, please . 

Any amount moves us furher away from this disaster. 

I thank you from the bottom of my heart and soul for any assistance you are willing to provide, 

gratefully, Anica and family 

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To all the Friends , Colleagues and former Colleagues who donated to help us - you have given us the greates Gift in the world - Hope 

Thank you so so much