Road opens for house sales
Transactions have been held up when discrepancies exist between building size and permits
A major legislative intervention, which is expected to release tens of thousands of “frozen” home sales, is currently being promoted by the Digital Governance Ministry.
The aim is to provide a definitive solution to surface discrepancies between horizontal properties and the permits that accompany them, which make the issuing of the electronic identity of a building impossible.
According to the regulation that will be included in a bill on the land registry, to be submitted in September by the ministry and the competent deputy minister, Kostas Kyranakis, owners will now be given the possibility to unilaterally modify the surfaces, without any limit to the deviation, but provided that the rights of the other owners of the building in establishing horizontal ownership are not affected.
That formula is expected to resolve one of the main problems that has arisen in the last two years, which has made it mandatory to issue a building ID for the properties that are being transferred (e.g. sale or parental concession).
As the president of the Panhellenic Property Owners Federation (POMIDA), Stratos Paradias, told Kathimerini, “more than 50% of horizontal properties today show differences in relation to the building permit or the original constitution of the horizontal property, either in terms of surface or in terms of the morphology of the building. Most of these differences arise from the period of construction of every building and this is explained by the way apartment buildings were constructed some 40 and 50 years ago.”
As real estate market executives explain, in the past it was a common phenomenon that constructions did not follow the plans very strictly. After construction was completed, the building permit was not updated. As a result, when relevant inspections are now carried out, various discrepancies, sometimes small and other times large, arise.
