2023-10-06 13:01:37
Tens of thousands of owners have been found in an endless pigeonhole real estate throughout the country due to its implementation Electronic Building Identitywhich now must accompany every transaction, such as transaction, parental provision, amendment of composition of horizontal ownershipeven usufruct waiver. Based on the estimates of the notary association of Greece, at this time it is estimated that there are at least 35,000 real estate cases pending for transfer, parental benefit or other reason, without their disposal being possible.
“We estimate that each office, of the 3,500 located across the country, has to handle between 5 and 15 such cases, often pending for many months,” Mr. Giorgos Rouskas reports to “K”., president of the Union of Notaries of Greece. Certainly, many thousands more property purchase and parenting cases have been thwarted due to their complexity. In fact, the problem seems to be constantly swelling, as more cases are constantly piling up.
Based on the relevant law that has been put into full effect since April 2022, every sale or parental grant of real estate and, in general, every act that changes the real right on the real estate must be accompanied by the issuance of a building identity card. This is a digital file that gathers all the individual items and documents that describe a property, such as building permit, static vulnerability sheet, title deeds, floor plans, millimeter table and any declarations of compliance with anti-infringement laws. The confirmation of the correctness of these details must be checked by the competent engineer through the relevant comparisons with the existing condition of the property.
As it turns out, the institutionalization of this measure has brought to the surface all the pathologies of the construction of buildings in the country, almost at the expense of the Greek state, fully confirming the popular saying “there is no real estate in Greece without some arbitrariness or illegality”. In most cases, discrepancies and errors are observed in the recording of the properties, which vary from minor differences, e.g. 1-2 sq.m. between the establishment of horizontal ownership or the floor plan and the current state of the property, up to arbitrariness involving even entire premises, which are otherwise stated in the contracts and in the establishment of horizontal property and otherwise are in reality.
It is estimated that at least 35,000 real estate cases are pending for transfer, parental benefit or other reason, without their liquidation being possible.
According to Mr. Ruska, even if a property has absolutely no arbitrariness, it takes about two months to issue a building identity. “The first step is to request a building permit from the competent urban planning authority. This usually takes at least two months. As long as no issues arise, then it proceeds e.g. the sale or the parental provision”, notes Mr Rouskas. However, if errors occur, e.g. in the registration of the surfaces, then a real calvary for the owner begins, lasting up to a year, while there are also cases where it is not possible to find a solution and the property ends up being completely devalued, as its owner cannot transfer it.
In fact, in many cases the owners, often heirs, are unaware of the existence of irregularities in their properties. One of the most common cases concerns the inconsistency of the approved plans kept by the respective urban planning department with the plans submitted by the contractor to the notary and based on which the deed of establishment of horizontal properties per floor has been drawn up. The aforementioned deed of incorporation has been used to sell the apartments, with the result that the surface area does not match the one indicated in the building permit is very common. This problem is almost universal in apartment buildings built for consideration in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, that is 50-70 years ago.
If the deviation of the surface also concerns part of the common area of the apartment building or the neighboring apartments on the same floor, the consent of the other owners is also required to modify the composition of the horizontal properties, which entails very high costs and even more time. For example, in many cases the owners of the neighboring properties have passed away or are abroad permanently, while others still refuse to be involved in such a process, as a result of which it is impossible to issue the building identity and the owner has no way to make use of the his property.
As one can reasonably understand, the problem is widespread and in fact has an impact on the smooth functioning of the real estate market and especially on the buying and selling of houses, as it makes thousands of apartments out of business. This removes valuable real estate from the balance of supply and demand, at a time when there is a severe shortage of homes for sale. This is how sales prices are constantly inflated and those who are interested in buying a home end up in a dead end, without even having the alternative of renting, where prices have also risen steeply in recent years.
Of course, as long as such problems exist, the government’s announcements of “completing real estate transactions in 2-3 days” through the creation of special digital platforms look like a bad joke.
Pergolas, grills and damaged permits
The tens of thousands of cases of real estate that cannot be transferred due to the identity of the building has certainly caused the intervention of the competent bodies. THE POMIDA (Panhellenic Federation of Property Owners) in collaboration with the Association of Notaries of Greece, they have elaborated a relevant proposal for the legislative regulation of a series of cases, in order to facilitate transactions in cases that are easier to resolve.
For example, where square footage variances are very small, some flexibility should be allowed. At the same time, as POMIDA emphasizes in its recent public intervention, it proposes to the competent Ministry of Environment and Energy a regulation based on which “every co-owner of a horizontal property in an apartment building can notarially correct unilaterally the exact actual surface area and subdivision of his property, for any reason and if the differentiation has occurred, with a unilateral modification of it as well deed establishing horizontal ownership of the apartment building, without, of course, affecting the meters on the plot and the other proportions, rights and obligations of the other co-owners”. It is also proposed that every owner of an independent property can notarially correct unilaterally the exact real surface and form of his property, correcting the contract by which he acquired it.
According to Mr. Ruska, there should also be a provision for the subsequent additions that have been made to a property, without these having a permanent nature and if of course they do not affect the common areas of the building or others neighboring properties. “We have cases where arbitrariness settlement is requested for pergolas, canopies, and even for built-in grills,” he says characteristically. Such interventions could be excluded so that notarial acts proceed more quickly and citizens are not inconvenienced.
POMIDA and notaries have drafted a proposal to legislate a number of “simple” cases to facilitate transactions.
Of course, this situation has also created great pressure on the engineers, who are called upon to resolve the impasses they encounter, often under pressure from the owners, who risk losing even hundreds of thousands of euros from a transaction cancellation. The irritation is even more pronounced in cases where the owner bears no responsibility, such as e.g. the loss or destruction of the building’s building permit file due to the negligence of the local planning authority.
According to the president of the TEE George Stasinos, in the near future the process of digitizing the records of urban planning will begin, a project which is estimated to be completed in about two years from today. Of course, even in such a case there is no solution to the cases of loss or destruction of the relevant documents, as they simply do not even exist to be digitized.
As engineers emphasize, in these cases it should be made mandatory (e.g. through a circular or ministerial decision) to issue a certificate of file loss from the competent urban planning authority. Such a provision does exist in the legislation, but several services do not apply it in practice, as a result of which the problems intensify.
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