Most property transactions in Greece complete without incident. The ones that do not tend to fail for reasons that were visible in the paperwork weeks earlier — and invisible on the viewing. A buyer walks through a well-presented apartment, likes it, pays a deposit, and only afterwards discovers that one of the seller’s siblings never formally accepted their share of the inheritance twenty years ago.
Legal due diligence is the stage that finds these things while they are still cheap to find. Here is what it actually involves.
The chain of title has to be unbroken
The first question is whether the seller genuinely owns what they are selling, and whether every transfer before them was validly completed. Greek property frequently passes by inheritance, and inheritance is where chains break: an heir who never filed an acceptance deed, a will contested and never resolved, a parental gift recorded incompletely.
These defects do not surface in a title search unless someone traces the chain back far enough. A search that goes back five years tells you very little; the relevant history often runs to several decades.
Encumbrances do not always clear themselves
Mortgages, prenotations of mortgage, seizures and adverse claims are recorded against the property, not the owner, and they follow the property to its new owner. A loan repaid in full does not automatically remove the prenotation registered against the title — someone has to apply for its deletion, and often nobody has.
Searches are run at both the Cadastre and the local Land Registry, because the transition between the two systems is incomplete in parts of the country and the records do not always agree. Where they disagree, that discrepancy is itself something to resolve before completion rather than after.
Planning legality is a separate question entirely
A clean title says nothing about whether the building is lawful. The review here covers the building permit, the civil engineer’s certificate confirming either that there is no unauthorised construction or that it has been regularised under the relevant legislation, and the energy performance certificate.
Unauthorised works are extremely common and not necessarily fatal — an enclosed balcony, a converted basement, a roof terrace room. What matters is whether they have been declared and regularised, whether the fines were paid, and whether the regularisation covers what is actually there. A property that cannot produce a valid engineer’s certificate cannot be transferred at all.
Restrictions that sit outside the deed
Some of the most serious constraints appear nowhere in the title. Forest maps may classify part of a plot as woodland, which severely limits building. Archaeological zones impose consent requirements and can stop a project for a year or longer. Coastal zone and watercourse boundaries restrict what may be built and how close.
For a buyer purchasing land, or an existing house with the intention of extending, these checks are frequently more consequential than anything in the title deed itself.
The clause that does the real work
Due diligence is only protective if it happens before the money moves. The practical mechanism is a preliminary contract containing an express due diligence period, with a right to withdraw and recover the deposit in full if the review is unsatisfactory.
Sellers resist this less often than buyers expect, particularly where the property is sound. A seller who refuses a reasonable review period is telling you something worth listening to.
What it costs to buy
Transfer tax is 3% of the taxable value plus a municipal surcharge, giving an effective 3.09%, calculated on the higher of the purchase price or the state’s assessed objective value — not on whichever is lower.
New builds with permits issued after 2006 fall in principle within the 24% VAT regime, but that VAT has been suspended, and where the developer has opted into the suspension the buyer pays the 3.09% transfer tax instead. This is not automatic across the market: whether a specific development has elected the suspension route is a question to ask before you budget.
Add notarial fees, registration charges, the engineer’s fee, legal fees and, where one is involved, agent commission. Taken together, transaction costs commonly land somewhere between 6% and 10% of the price. Annual ownership costs follow through ENFIA, assessed from the property declaration filed on acquisition.
Buying from abroad
None of this requires the buyer to be in Greece. A special notarial power of attorney, properly certified and apostilled where required, allows representation from the preliminary contract through to signature and registration. A Greek tax number is needed first, and in most cases a Greek bank account through which the price is paid.
Registration is the step that completes the acquisition. Until the transfer is registered at the Land Registry and entered on the Cadastre, ownership is not fully established, and a signed deed sitting in a drawer is not the same thing as title.
Our firm acts for buyers on property acquisition and legal due diligence in Greece, and on the tax number and bank account that have to be in place first.