Buying property in Greece

In Greece a transfer is executed before a notary, you need a Greek tax number first, and two land registration systems run side by side. A certificate or excerpt costs an average of €12 according to the Greek contact point at the European Land Registry Network, read on 26 August 2026.

Where to start

Greece is the harder of the two countries on this site to write about honestly, and the reason is worth stating before anything else: most of the money side of a Greek purchase is published by Greek government bodies whose websites refuse automated requests. On 26 August 2026 the Independent Authority for Public Revenue, the national services portal, the Hellenic Cadastre, the National Printing House and the Hellenic Parliament all returned an error or a refusal to a plain request. So this page states what could be read and says where the rest of it is missing, rather than filling the gap with a figure somebody remembers.

What can be read is the structural point, and it happens to be the one that matters most to a foreign buyer.

Greece is midway through replacing a nineteenth-century system with a modern one, and both are live. In areas where the cadastral survey has been completed, the office works from cadastral data and is plot-based: every property right is registered against a specific property carrying a unique cadastral number, and an interested party can obtain an excerpt of the cadastral database on request. In areas where the survey has not been completed, and the Greek contact point's own words are that these are "the vast majority", the office works by transcription and is person-based: every registration of a property right is made under the name of the owner, and all enquiries are based on the name of the owner.

Read that twice, because it inverts a British assumption completely. In a transcription area there is no way to walk up to the register with an address and ask what is registered against it. You have to arrive with a specific name and a specific title describing the property, and the application form, under the existing law, can only be on paper and in Greek.

Which system covers the property you are looking at is therefore not a detail about filing. It decides whether a search is a routine request or a piece of research, and it is the first question to put to whoever is acting for you.

Who does what

Three roles, and the first of them has no English equivalent at all.

The notary. A Greek notary is a public officer who draws up the transfer deed, and the transaction happens in their office. The Greek state's own document list for the investor residence permit requires "a certificate issued by the notary who composed the purchase contract", certifying the parties, the property, how the agreed price was paid and the specific details of that payment. That is the state proceeding on the basis that a transfer of Greek immovable property is a notarial act. There is no English solicitor equivalent of this office, and the notary is not your adviser: they act for the deed.

The lawyer. Separate from the notary, and the person who acts for you. gov.uk's Greece guidance says, in full, "Contact an English-speaking lawyer if you're considering buying property or land in Greece." That is the entirety of the United Kingdom government's advice on the subject.

The civil engineer. In Greece the engineer's certificate about the legality of what has been built, and about whether anything has been added without permit, is a normal part of a transfer file rather than an optional extra. It is the closest thing in the Greek process to a British survey, and it answers a different question from one.

We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. Before you commit money, instruct an independent lawyer who acts only for you in the country where the property is.

The cadastre, and why it is still being built

The plot-based system is the ktimatologio, the Hellenic Cadastre, and the older name-based system it is replacing is the ypothikofylakeio, the mortgage registry. A property in a completed area carries a cadastral code, the ΚΑΕΚ, which is the identifier every right against that property hangs from.

Three published facts about asking either of them a question, all from the Greek contact point's contribution to the European Land Registry Network, read on 26 August 2026.

Who may ask. Anyone invoking legitimate interest can apply for information held in the land registry, and Greek law does not require special evidence proving that the interest exists. Inspection of the land books on the spot is public.

What it costs. The average cost for each certificate or excerpt requested is €12, according to the European Land Registry Network's Greek contact point. That is their figure and they give it as an average, not as a tariff, and this site has not found the Hellenic Cadastre's own published schedule.

How long, and how it arrives. In offices working without cadastral data, registration or rejection of an act happens within a day. In offices covering cadastral areas it must happen within five days of submission, and a certificate is issued only once registration is complete. Greek law does not allow electronic signature of these certificates, so they cannot be sent electronically at all: they are collected at the office or posted at your cost.

That last one is the sentence to hold on to. A document that cannot be emailed is a document somebody has to physically collect, in Greek, in the district where the property is.

The tax number, and the order things happen in

Foreign nationals can own land and property in Greece but will usually need a Greek tax number, the AFM. That is gov.uk's own sentence, from Living in Greece, last updated 17 March 2026 and read on 26 August 2026.

The AFM comes before the deed rather than after it, because the notary cannot draw a transfer deed for a person the tax system does not know about. It is not a residence permit, it does not make you resident, and having one does not by itself create a Greek filing obligation on income you do not have in Greece. It is an identifier, and it is the first administrative step in the sequence rather than a consequence of the last one.

What you will pay

This is the section this page cannot properly write, and saying so is more useful than a number nobody can check.

| Component | What could be read, and from where | As at | |---|---|---| | Certificate or excerpt from a land registry office | An average of €12 per certificate or excerpt, European Land Registry Network, Greek contact point | 26 August 2026 | | Registration or rejection of an act, cadastral areas | Within 5 days of submission, European Land Registry Network, Greek contact point | 26 August 2026 | | Property transfer tax | Not established. aade.gr returned HTTP 403 on every path attempted, with and without a referer and with full browser headers; gsis.gr and gov.gr returned HTTP 403 | 26 August 2026 | | VAT position on a new build | Not established, same reason | 26 August 2026 | | Notary fee scale | Not established. The fee instrument is a joint ministerial decision and it was not located; a scale reproduced by a professional body is not the instrument | 26 August 2026 | | Lawyer's fee | Not established. No provider fetched for this build publishes one | 26 August 2026 | | Hellenic Cadastre's own published fee schedule | Not established. ktimatologio.gr returned HTTP 403 to every request, with and without full browser headers | 26 August 2026 |

There is no rounded percentage anywhere on this site for Greek purchase costs and there will not be one until the instrument behind it has been read. A figure without a source and a date invites you to check it and find us wrong, which is worse than an empty cell that tells you where to look.

The full record of what was attempted, what answered and what refused is in the source register on who writes this.

The English instincts that will cost you

There is no exchange of contracts and there is no chain. The transaction turns on the notarial deed, and the notary is a public officer rather than either side's representative.

A cadastral record is not a title deed. The ktimatologio record describes a plot and the rights registered against it. It is not the instrument that transferred ownership to the current owner, and reading one as though it were is the single most common mistake a foreign buyer makes in Greece.

"The land registry" is two different institutions, depending on where the property is, and they answer questions in two different ways. Ask which one first.

Nothing arrives by email. Greek law does not permit electronic signature of these certificates. Plan for a physical collection in Greece by somebody who is there.

What this page does not cover

It does not cover Greek property tax, transfer tax, VAT on new builds, income tax on rent or the annual property tax, because no rate for any of them could be read from a Greek government source on 26 August 2026 and this site does not print a tax rate it has not read.

It does not cover inheritance, Greek company ownership structures, agricultural land, or property in border areas. None of those was researched for this build, and this site therefore states nothing about any of them. It does not cover mortgages, and it looks up no property.

Where to go next

• The Greece golden visa is the residence-by-investment route, and the page states what the Greek state's own page says, dated, and what it does not say.
• What to check before you pay a deposit puts the Greek moment beside the Cypriot one, so you can see how differently the two work.
• The document glossary is where the ktimatologio, the ypothikofylakeio and the ΚΑΕΚ sit beside their Cypriot counterparts. It covers those two countries only, and says on the page why France, Italy and Portugal are not on it.
• Buying property in Cyprus is the other country covered here, and it is far better documented than this one.
• What a Cyprus land registry search costs is what a fully sourced version of the money section above looks like, for the country where the sources answered.