Real property

A breath of relief for tens of thousands of property owners is brought by new legislation affecting transfers of real estate, providing solutions to purchases, parental transfers and inheritances that were “frozen” because the civil engineer measured the property differently from what is recorded in the contract!

The Ministry of National Economy and Finance intends to bring changes to the law on encroached property, so as to facilitate those who have legal or perceived titles to public estates and the exception of those who have erected arbitrary buildings without a building permit, and which they have not legalized.

The improved offer by the only candidate for the purchase of the state's 623,000-square meter property in the Ververonta area near Porto Heli in the Peloponnese was also judged to be too low.

This was the decision by the TAIPED board, putting an end to the second attempt in the last decade to utilize the property, advertised as even having the potential to develop a small airport.

The Parliamentary Earthquake Commission has requested for a zoning amnesty to be limited to urban transformation in order to solve the property problem of illegal structures.

The Commission also reported that around 6.7 million houses need to be retrofitted or rebuilt.

Demand in the property sector is proving surprisingly resilient amid the coronavirus pandemic, as a survey by property ad website Spitogatos has revealed that 85 percent of candidate buyers or tenants do not intend to delay or cancel their decisions due to the change in conditions.

Thousands of properties are coming into the state's possession not because they're bogged down in debt, but simply because the people who inherit them are opting to give up the titles.

The bulk of properties on the market haven't experienced so much as a whiff of buying interest, but there has been some strong activity in certain sections of the market in the last few months as some people have identified significant buying opportunities despite the unfavorable tax system and the vulnerable state of the Greek economy.