04-04-2012 Megaton bomb for illegal buildings

Once again, the Council of State has thrown a spanner in the works for hundreds of thousands of Greeks, as well as for the state. The supreme judges have now dropped a bombshell on the ongoing process of regularizing unauthorized buildings, ruling that they cannot be legalized arbitrarily on the basis of private documents or affidavits from their owners.

The Council of State puts a stop to the process for buildings for which it cannot be proven exclusively with aerial photographs or public documents that they had been built (at least their framework) by 28-7-11 (when Law 4014/11 on their “regularization” came into force).

The judges are blocking all procedures and provisions that allowed owners of unauthorized buildings to prove that they were built before July 28, 2011, even using private documents, their own sworn statements, or relevant engineering reports.

Thus, from now on, settlement procedures cannot proceed if the owner submits private documents. All applications that are not based on aerial photographs or public documents remain “up in the air” and cannot be submitted or even reviewed, while the Plenary Session of the Council of State will meet in June to rule on the constitutionality of the entire legislative framework for unauthorized buildings.

The Council of State also criticizes the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change for the constant delays in the process, expressing fears that a new generation of illegal buildings will be created. The judges also dealt extensively with complaints that some owners built after July 28 but submitted documents proving the property’s earlier existence.

The problem, however, is not only about future properties, but concerns have been raised about what will happen to the 300,000 applications that have already been submitted and for which the state has collected around €400 million. These applications were made without aerial photographs and most of them with private documents, which raises the question of whether they will also be “frozen” and the owners will be left in limbo. It is noteworthy that the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change paid thousands of euros to obtain aerial photographs only from Rhodes, Mykonos, and Santorini.

Meanwhile, a serious incident occurred in Parliament when the Deputy Minister of Environment, Energy, and Climate Change, N. Sifounakis, attempted to pass an amendment that would allow a reduced fine of 20% of the total, not only for minorities in Thrace but for all owners in Xanthi and Rodopi. The strong reactions of MPs who accused him of favoritism forced Mr. Sifounakis to withdraw the amendment.