Land Registry drive next year

The owners of most homes in Attica, Thessaloniki and other major cities will be asked to pay to register their properties in the first half of next year, the government said yesterday, as Greece attempts to continue down its bumpy route toward creating an extensive land registry. In plans announced by Public Works and Environment Minister Giorgos Souflias, people who own property in any of the 107 municipalities or communities to be included in the program will receive notification asking them to submit their title deeds at one of the local offices which will be specially created to facilitate the project. Property owners will be notified at the start of next year, as the government wants to complete this phase of registration – the fourth and biggest attempted so far – by 2010. The scheme will also cater to Greeks who live abroad but own property in Greece. The effort to create a land registry began some 12 years ago but has not had the desired results so far. Ministry figures show that only 850,000 hectares of land have been registered. This resulted in 5.8 million entries being made on the system. «With the new land registration program, 6.7 million records of property ownership will be made and 310,000 hectares will be entered on the National Land Registry,» said Souflias. The ambitious project will come at a cost for homeowners, as they will have to pay an initial fee of 35 euros to register their property. Once the paperwork has gone through, they will have to pay a heftier charge equivalent to 1 percent of the so-called objective value, minus 20,000 euros. The fees paid by property owners will essentially fund the project. The ministry estimates that this phase of creating the Land Register will cost some 1.65 billion euros, of which 1.1 billion euros will be covered by charges to property owners. Greece has received some 100 million euros in funding from the European Union to create a Land Register but had to pay this money back due to the project’s lack of progress.