State to obtain any properties still undeclared

Some 100,000 private properties are expected to gradually pass into state ownership by the end of 2019, because they have not been declared to the national cadaster.

The deadline for declarations of ownership at 111 cadaster offices in areas where the registering process has been completed is set to expire at the end of the year. The competent authorities have already started their preparations for the process of transferring those undeclared properties to the state.

The real estate assets that have not been declared in those areas are estimated to number close to 300,000. About two-thirds of them are believed to belong to the state anyway – with the state having neglected to declare them – while the rest are private properties such as apartments, stores, storage rooms and, mostly, plots of land and farmland. Some happen to be in areas of high commercial value too.

Therefore the registering process is appears set to evolve into an unprecedented process of private properties falling into the hands of the state.

Land registrars report that in the northern suburbs of Athens alone there are over 5,000 properties recorded as having “an unknown owner.”