After the inspection in Step 1, a new site plan sealed and signed by the engineer is obtained. The plan shall be submitted to the notary public a few days before the conclusion of the sale contract. The creation of the National Cadastre of Greece is still in progress. Accordingly, this step is required for areas which have not been yet included in the Cadastre.

A lawyer conducts a search of information in the Real Estate office and then prepares the sale agreement. Only lawyers are entitled to conduct a search in the Real Estate Office. The research in the Land Registry mentioned in procedure 3 may take more than 2 days, since the due diligence of the ownership titles goes back 20 years at least; the duration of the research also depends on the findings of the due diligence of the ownership titles of the real property.
An attorney’s participation at the conclusion of the sale contract is obligatory only if the contract value (determined by the real estate’s real value) exceeds € 29,347. The sale agreement is usually prepared by the notary and then reviewed by the seller’s and the buyer’s lawyers.

The seller must obtain a tax certificate from the local Tax Authority where the seller is registered as a company. The certificate assures that the seller has been paying his taxes accordingly. The tax certificate may also be obtained by the notary public.

The seller must obtain a certificate of good standing from the Social Security Institute, which assures that the seller (company) has been paying its social security.

The seller must obtain a tax clearance certificate from the Municipality. The certificate assures that the seller has been paying the real estate fees.

Parties obtain a copy of the declaration made before the Tax Authority competent in the locality of the property verifying that the buyer has paid the property transfer tax. The transfer tax is actually paid at this time.

The draft of the sale agreement is delivered to the Bar Association of the Lawyers. The Bar issues certificates that the buyer and seller have paid their lawyers’ fees. Either the lawyer or the parties can deliver the agreement to the Bar Association.

The notary notarizes the sale agreement and prepares the public deed in the presence of the parties and their lawyers, who must also sign.
The notary checks up on the documentation which legitimizes the legal representatives of the contracting parties (i.e. Minutes of the Board of Directors regarding the representation of the company published in the Government Gazette, Minutes of the Board of Directors and notarized Power of Attorney regarding the authorization of the contracting party to act on behalf of the company and execute a sale agreement regarding the specific real estate), the ID’s of seller and buyer and attaches to the Public Deed the documentation obtained in the previous procedures.

The documentation includes:

Site plan or Cadastral extract (obtained in Step 2)
Sale agreement (prepared in Procedures 3 and 4)
Tax clearance certificate (obtained in Step 5)
Social Security certificate (obtained in Step 6)
Municipal tax clearance (obtained in Step 7)
Verification of payment of transfer tax (obtained in Step 8 )
Copy of the building license (already in possession of seller)

The public deed is delivered to the Real Estate Office to be recorded under the name of the buyer. At the same time, parties request a property certificate, an ownership certificate, a non-opposition certificate and a records certificate from the Real Estate Office. The transfer of deeds usually takes place during the day of application.

The transfer is registered in the Cadastre. During this period the Registrar checks the legality of the deeds’ transfer by using the cadastral database.