Greece reveals almost 15 thousand properties that belong to "unknown owners"

In 2018, cadastral registration was completed in 36 districts across the country. During the procedure almost 200 thousand real estate objects were registered. This means that their owners have received legal title to the property. Of this number, just over 7% were designated as belonging to an “unknown owner”. The exact number was 14,484 objects.

What will happen to such objects?

According to the law of the country, if an object - a land plot, house or apartment - does not have a specific owner, it must be transferred to the state ownership. However, there are times when such a status is assigned due to inaccuracies in the documents or the absence of some of the necessary papers. In this case the cadastral registration period is extended and property owners are given the opportunity to correct inaccurate data that were entered during the first registration.

According to preliminary estimates, 80% of the above number of objects will be transferred to the state. As for the remaining properties, they will be asked to re-register. It will be possible to submit documents until December 31, 2022. If this is not done, the state will deprive such owners of property their rights. After that they will have the opportunity to go to court, which can make either one of the decisions:

• return the real estate object;
• provide monetary compensation.

It is worth noting that in the rest of the country (except for the indicated 36 districts) there can also be found properties that belong to "unknown owners". The owners of such houses, apartments and land plots also have time until December 31, 2022 to amend the documentation so as not to lose their property.