The Ministries of Finance and Environment offer a new essential assistance to vendees and property owners. Until the end of March individuals who are interested in drafting a purchase and sale agreement and those who are interested in parental grants as well as inheritance, are not obligated to proceed with the issuance of an “Electronic Building Identity” by an authorized technical expert.
The Ministries of Finance and Environment responded to the requests of property owners, attorneys and Notaries since the delay caused by bureaucracy in combination with the exceptional circumstances arising from the pandemic, rendered the completion of the relevant necessary actions within strict deadlines extremely difficult. This new predicted exception constituted an exclusive solution for the foresaid issues. In particular, the transfer of rights in rem and the notarial deeds of establishment will be concluded until the end of March, only with the certificate of the competent engineer without the obligation to further issue an Electronic Building Identity by an authorized engineer. Regarding the implementation of the foresaid regulation, the submission time of the corresponding property transfer tax to the competent IRS does not play a role.
This exception concerns two categories of legal acts. Firstly, the property owners who had received a deadline until the 31st of March 2021 by the Ministry of Finance are favored so that to sign their agreements estimated upon the former objective values. This is plausible under the requirement that they had submitted until the 31st of December 2021 the predicted parental grant, donation and property transfer tax declarations. Secondly, the property owners who have proceeded since 1/1/2022 and those who will proceed until 31/03/2022 to tax declarations regarding any type of property transfer which are estimated upon the current objective values of the properties are favored as well.
From “a typical point of view” the above predicted easement will offer a “breath” to the owners, primarily financial, since the interested individuals will deduct an amount of 300-1.000 Euro from the expenses relevant to the completion of the property transfer procedure corresponding to the issuance of an Electronic Building Identity. At a second stage, the delay resulted by the saturation of the property transfer system will increase. Indicatively, according to the numbers featured by the Independent Authority of Public Revenue (in Greek: ΑΑΔΕ), the unbearable number of the property transfer tax declarations and provision of services for the current system is evident since only for the last fifteen days of December 20.000 declarations were submitted approximately, whereas regarding January 2022 this number has increased already to 75.700 (!) declarations.
It is evident that the preferable framework, in favor of purchase and sale procedures and investment, is increasingly reinforced. The favorable regulation set by the Legislator and the pertinent Ministers have led to a rapid increase of property transfers and investments in Greece. It is strongly indicated that the first months of 2022 constitute the suitable period for profitable investments in the promising sector of real estate.
In case you re interest in acquiring a property in Greece, please contact the experienced team of our Law Firm at info@georgakilawfirm.com.