8
Greek Business Law
A Handbook for Businesses and Legal Practitioners
Issues in Civil Law
3. Real Property
(a) “horizontal property”
: this is applicable mainly to apartment buildings
where there is ownership of separate parts of the building (a building
floor or an apartment).
(b) “Simple-vertical property”
: this is applicable when separate buildings are
constructed on a single plot of land.
(c) “Complex-vertical property”
. This is applicable when“simple-vertical prop-
erty”is divided further horizontally into apartments.
These ownerships are constituted by a notarial act or a court decision and in-
clude joint ownership of the common areas of the entire property.
3.3. Ways of property acquisition under Greek law
Property is normally acquired through the following manner: (a) by a contract
made before a notary and registered publicly; (b) by succession; (c) by an act of
gift or parental grant; (d) by auction; (e) by regular or ordinary usucaption (i.e.
acquisitive prescription) of a personwho is in possession of the property for ten
years; (f ) by extraordinary usucaption (i.e. acquisitive prescription) of a person
who is in possession of the property for twenty years; (g) by an act of a public
authority or court (e.g. expropriation or redistribution of land, judicial distribu-
tion of properties of joint ownership).
3.4. Taxation of real property
The value of properties in Greece is assessed according to a so-called “system
of objective value”, which provides for a minimum value of real property to be
used by the tax authorities and is based on allegedly objective criteria such as
position, age of the building, size etc. This system is intended to allow the tax
authorities to have a reference value when imposing taxes in relation to the
property under sale. This practically means that the transfer tax derives either
from the “objective value” or the contractual consideration, whichever is the
highest. Traditionally, the objective values have been lower thanmarket values,
yet the gap has closed significantly in recent years following successive revi-
sions of the “objective value” system and the prolonged recession of the Greek
economy which has lowered real estate demand and market values dramati-
cally.
3.4.1. Taxes imposed on the transfer of property
GreekVAT is imposed on the first sale of a newly built building at the rate of 23%
(only for constructions licenses that were issued or revised after 1 January 2006)
instead of transfer tax (Real Estate Transfer Tax - art. 6, Greek VAT Code). Every
