# All Houses Illegal



## puss (Sep 18, 2010)

This new Government fine that we shall all have to pay is just so much nonsense. We will not be able to sell our houses unless it is paid and I have been told mine will be between 2000/4000 euros!! We live on what we earn, with no savings to speak of. This new law is also being extended to tiled pergolas as well. If your paperwork is not in government office by 31 December, the fines will be much more. My advice is to seek advice now from your lawyer.


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## Col&Col (Aug 6, 2010)

puss said:


> This new Government fine that we shall all have to pay is just so much nonsense. We will not be able to sell our houses unless it is paid and I have been told mine will be between 2000/4000 euros!! We live on what we earn, with no savings to speak of. This new law is also being extended to tiled pergolas as well. If your paperwork is not in government office by 31 December, the fines will be much more. My advice is to seek advice now from your lawyer.


Can you tell me what law this is as we have a house on Rhodes and are eventually planning to move there permanently.


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## puss (Sep 18, 2010)

Col&Col said:


> Can you tell me what law this is as we have a house on Rhodes and are eventually planning to move there permanently.


This is a law that was brought in in the Spring. It has been on all Greek news but us Brits only hear about it through friends. You need to find out if your basement/ground floor is classed as living space or storage on your contract and then you have to pay so much per square metre of the area of your house. If you are in a first floor or above apartment you should be ok as long as your contract states the correct sq metres as the apartment. An architect has to check that your floor area is the same as your contract and will them submit your paperwork for you. If you do not pay this fine (they are not calling it a tax as all houses are classed as illegal now), when you come to sell your house, you will then be liable for a much greater fine. Please do not hold me responsible for what I am telling you, you need to have proper advice so seek advice from a proper advisor in Greece. Being in Greece, of course, they are still selling new houses without this official stamp on the paperwork!!!! Just get your paperwork in before the end of the year. As well as pergolas I understand you have to get proper licences/legalise swimming pools as well.


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## thanos (Sep 23, 2010)

puss said:


> This is a law that was brought in in the Spring. It has been on all Greek news but us Brits only hear about it through friends. You need to find out if your basement/ground floor is classed as living space or storage on your contract and then you have to pay so much per square metre of the area of your house. If you are in a first floor or above apartment you should be ok as long as your contract states the correct sq metres as the apartment. An architect has to check that your floor area is the same as your contract and will them submit your paperwork for you. If you do not pay this fine (they are not calling it a tax as all houses are classed as illegal now), when you come to sell your house, you will then be liable for a much greater fine. Please do not hold me responsible for what I am telling you, you need to have proper advice so seek advice from a proper advisor in Greece. Being in Greece, of course, they are still selling new houses without this official stamp on the paperwork!!!! Just get your paperwork in before the end of the year. As well as pergolas I understand you have to get proper licences/legalise swimming pools as well.


hello

I find this site as I’m trying to have information for moving to uk while the things here in Greece aren’t going so well. And just from curiosity I checked what are the problems that expatriate are confronted in my country.

So about your problem don’t be so anxious. I’m land surveyor engineer and I know the parameters of this law. Until the end of the year you must submit to the urban planning office (poleodomia) the papers that the law needs in order to not have any further penalties about illegal departments of your house. The papers that you have to submit are:
-application form
-affirmation declaration
-technical report (by an engineer)
-drawings which are showed the areas which now considered illegal.

All this procedure should be executed from the owner but as the technical report should have been signed by an engineer you must address to an engineer in order to gather and submit all the papers. The minimum fee for the engineer services has been set at 300€. 

According to the urban planning regulation the basement of a house should be used only for storage use or for parking use. That means if you have a bedroom or a living room in the basement this is illegal. Another case is the imipaithrioi areas. In order to understand the term you should imagine a room without having a 4th wall. The concept of the law was to create open area as balcony which will have protection from the 3 other sides and it would be opened to the 4th one. This law was come on force at 1985 so if your house has been constructed in a previous year probably you will not have any problem. All this area it is possible to be identified only through the official construction drawings.

The total penalty is rendered according to the value of the region and the square meters of the illegal areas. The urban planning office will provide you the last amount.

As you can understand you must find an engineer in order to organize all this procedure.
As I have been informed the cases are 1.5 million here in Greece but until now only 70.000 owners have submitted papers to the urban planning office. The government said that after the end of the deadline it will execute checks in order to find out how have submitted papers in order to give him a higher penalty. I believe this last is extremely difficult as the employees in the public services are not enough for that kind of task.

So don’t worry you have plenty of time to organize your actions


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## puss (Sep 18, 2010)

Yes, it is as I thought. You say there will not be enough public sector workers to enforce this, but can you tell me: If I do not do this, will I be able to sell my house without the official stamp or will I have to pay an increased fine when I sell the house?? Thanks


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## The Grocer (May 30, 2010)

Hi all,

Can I add another query to this...
Would my balcony in front of the house now be considered illegal....it was on the original "legal plans" but since then I have put a tile roof over it however it is still open on all three other sides...

thanks


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## puss (Sep 18, 2010)

The Grocer said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Can I add another query to this...
> Would my balcony in front of the house now be considered illegal....it was on the original "legal plans" but since then I have put a tile roof over it however it is still open on all three other sides...
> ...


I think you still have to pay for the tiled roof. My friends have a BBQ area, open on 4 sides but with a tiled roof over and they are having to pay.


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## puss (Sep 18, 2010)

Col&Col said:


> Can you tell me what law this is as we have a house on Rhodes and are eventually planning to move there permanently.


The main problem is for folk like yourself who do not actually live in Greece. If you read the threads below yo will get the jist of the Law. You need to contact an architect to sort the paperwork but I believe you have to go in person with the architect to the KEP office to legalise things. Not Ideal, but it is Greece after all!!!!!


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## thanos (Sep 23, 2010)

puss said:


> Yes, it is as I thought. You say there will not be enough public sector workers to enforce this, but can you tell me: If I do not do this, will I be able to sell my house without the official stamp or will I have to pay an increased fine when I sell the house?? Thanks


I believe that you bought the house with the imipathrioi areas closed, but in the papers they are depicted open. In the contract the description of the house says that for example the area of the house is 80 m2 and the imipathrioi area is 16m2. All the payments about your property or the municipality taxes are been rendered according to the 80m2. But in reality you have a house of 96m2. Even in the official drawings your house is depicted with 80m2 and the rest 16m2 are presented like a closed balcony. So in the future if you want to sell your house you will not have to pay anything but in the contract you will present the house with fake information that the imipathrioi area is still open. The problem is that the buyer will try to lower the price while he will buy 80m2 legal house and 16m2 illegal. From the 70.000 of the cases that have already submitted theirs papers most of them are constructors who want to sell their houses in a better price as they will have regulate the imipathrioi areas.


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