Land Registry: Anyone who fails to declare it loses it – What applies

“Register it to save it, or you risk losing it.” Property owners should take this motto of the Land Registry seriously because if they don’t, they risk losing their property.

The advice to owners is simple: consult the appropriate specialist according to your needs. In practical terms, this means that you cannot, for example, ask an accountant to draw up a topographical survey for you. Each case is unique.

The cost of preparing a file varies (roughly between €35 and €50 per entitlement). If you do not have contracts, you will need to pay €5 per sheet, and if you do not have a transfer certificate (which is no longer required), you will need to pay €5 per sheet.

The topographical survey
A topographical survey costs at least €200. Here, things are more complicated. This is because the more accurate the owner’s location of a property is, the lower the risk that the boundaries of their property will not be accurately recorded in the Land Registry.

The owners will have to take into account that they still have to and for a square meter of recording error, can be reduced or and to prohibit the construction (since there is a risk that the integrity of the plot may be lost) and the value of the property will be significantly reduced.

And that is why agricultural engineers and surveyors argue that submitting a dependent topographical survey (the cost of which usually ranges from €200 to €1,000) to the Land Registry is the only way forward for properties that are valuable and exploitable.

“The cost of corrections and the subsequent delay in their implementation are many times greater than the initial correct declaration to the Land Registry with the submission of a dependent topographical diagram,” says Michalis Kalogiannakis, president of the Panhellenic Association of Certified Agricultural Engineers.

“Forgotten charges”
At the same time, there are still charges pending in limbo. Specifically, with the completion of the cadastral survey process, the law provides for the payment of a proportional fee by the beneficiaries of ownership and usufruct who have been registered in the cadastral registers.

The proportional cadastral fee is paid by the owners or usufructuaries and is set at a rate of one per thousand on the value of the right exceeding €20,000, which is calculated based on the zone price, age, and floor.

In the case of beneficiaries, the €20,000 is deducted from each beneficiary and the resulting amount is divided among the beneficiaries (co-owners and usufructuaries). However, as mentioned above, the collection of this fee has not yet been activated.

No cash
As clarified by the Land Registry, “cash payments will not be accepted.” Furthermore, the transactions at the a16> cash desks of the regional services will be carried out as follows:

• By using a card via POS or checks for amounts greater than €200, with regard to the Transfer and Mortgage System.
• By using a card via POS or through banks in relation to the National Land Registry.

Extensions
Owners in eight regional units have another opportunity to register their real estate in the Land Registry.

Specifically, as announced by the Land Registry, property owners in Ilia have until June 12 to declare their assets, while those with real estate in Lasithi, Pieria, Fthiotida, Evrytania, Corinthia, Argolis, and Arcadia can submit the relevant file by June 18, 2019. At the same time, the deadline for submitting correction requests and objections in areas of Kozani has been extended to May 31, 2019.

As regards corrections to applications in areas of the Regional Unit of Kozani, an extension has been granted, as mentioned above, until May 31, 2019, for the submission of correction requests and objections against the provisional cadastral diagrams and posting tables. For foreign residents and the Greek State, the corresponding deadline is June 25, 2019.

Meanwhile, the first regional Land Registry office has been operating in Veroia since Holy Tuesday. This means that the Amistho Mortgage Registry has been abolished and replaced by the Veroia Branch of the Central Macedonia Land Registry Office.