Electronic register for all buildings

Starting next year, the process of electronically recording all buildings in the country, public and private, with the aim of recording all data on a special electronic platform that will be maintained by the Ministry of Environment, Energy, and Climate Change.

Priority will be given to the approximately 500,000 unauthorized buildings that have been (or will be) subject to the regularization laws, for which the process must be completed within five years.

Registration will be carried out through the new Electronic Building Identity system and will be mandatory. Properties without an Electronic Identity will not be transferable and, after the completion of the specified deadlines, will be considered completely illegal. The submission of false information by the responsible engineer will be severely punished with high fines and the suspension of their professional license for a certain period of time.

The Electronic Identity Card was established in 2010, in the law on semi-open spaces, and has been pending ever since. A few days ago, the draft Presidential Decree was signed by Deputy Minister of Environment and Energy Nikos Tagaras and forwarded to the Council of State.

It was drafted in close cooperation with the Technical Chamber of Greece. The Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change believes that the Supreme Court will have completed its review by December and that the presidential decree will come into force in early 2015. At that point, the deadlines will begin to run. Citizens are required to complete the Electronic Identity at some point within the decade (or five years for owners of unauthorized buildings). However, beyond the general deadline, in the case of any construction work on a building that requires a building permit or approval for small-scale works, the identity card must be completed for the entire building. In the event of a transfer of ownership of a building, a building identity form must be completed, which will replace the engineer’s certificate that currently accompanies contracts. The task of completing the building identity form is undertaken by an engineer appointed by the owner, who submits all the necessary information in electronic form with an application to the competent Directorate of Building and Construction Regulations of the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change.

Upon completion of the process, an owner code is issued and sent electronically to the responsible engineer and to the owner named in the application.

The electronic registration process applies to both the entire building and to individual properties, whether horizontal or vertical. In order to avoid delays between co-owners, each owner is given the option to proceed separately for their own apartment. Any work exceeding the building permit or building identity is considered unauthorized and the owner is subject to fines for unauthorized construction.

In cases where false building identification details are submitted by the responsible engineer, in addition to criminal penalties, fines ranging from €2,000 to €20,000 and suspension of the professional license for a period of two to 24 months are provided for.

Permits also available online
From 2015, along with the Electronic Identity Card, the mandatory electronic submission and issuance of building permits will come into effect.

The Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change plans to launch a pilot program at the end of September for the new licensing system in six urban planning offices, including Athens, Thessaloniki, Corinth, and others, with a view to subsequently extending it to all building services throughout the country. Documents and studies for the issuance of building permits will be submitted and processed electronically, within the stages provided for by law, without the need for engineers to visit the urban planning offices. Owners will be able to monitor the process of issuing their building permit via their computer with a special access code. The engineer and the employees of the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change will also have access.

The new system for electronic issuing licenses is being implemented by the Technical Chamber of Greece in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change and is linked to the new institution of electronic identity of buildings as part of a comprehensive information system that will be managed electronically all the data that concerns the building stock of the country.

The aim is then, by the time the National Land Registry is completed in 2020, to include all spatial and urban planning data for the country.