Hidden charges and overriding interests

1. Are there any such hidden charges in your system? If so, please list them, and explain how a buyer can discover them. Explain if there is any simple way that the property can be freed from them.

2. Do any of these, or any other similar matters, have priority over a mortgage, where the lender was acting in good faith and was unaware of them? Explain if there is any simple way that the property can be freed from them.

Under Greek Law, any right on property must be registered in the Land Registry in order to produce legal effects. Property rights (meaning ownership, mortgages, easements) burden the property even after it has been sold to a third party acting in good faith.

These rights are the actual charges of the property itself (and not the owner) and must be mentioned in the Registry. In that sense there are no hidden charges in the Greek system; a future buyer or lender cannot be found in a position that a right not registered prevails over his own right.

To be noted that;

• Leases do not constitute a property right as such, however, once registered in the Land Registry, they are binding for any future buyer.
• Prescriptive rights (adverse possession) can be acquired only via a court decision recognising such right on a property. Any action for the recognition of such rights must be registered in the Registry, so that a future buyer of lender is aware of the vindication.
• In general, any kind of judicial claim which relates to the property and may eventually lead to a loss or a modification or the property, must be mentioned in the Registry (namely vindication, dispossession proceedings, action for distribution, possessory action, action for easement, action for inheritance etc.). Registration in the Land Registry is a condition for the action’s admissibility.
• Any other obligations of the owner (financial charges, tax obligations, obligation for shared facilities, contractual obligations etc.) constitute charges of the owner and not of the property as such and do not burden the property after it has been sold.
• Public rights of way and other limitations imposed by urban planning are mentioned in the Land Registry; any administrative act affecting urban planning and the use of land must be registered.

As mentioned above, there are no hidden charges in the Greek system; a lender acting in good faith will never face the situation where a right not registered in the Land Registry prevails over his right of mortgage.