Priority
1. Criteria for setting priority. How is priority established? Is priority guaranteed by the fact of presenting firstly a document against other document that is potentially incompatible?
The only criterion of priority set by Greek law is date and time of presentation of the document to the LR as this presentation has been recorded in the Book of Incoming Documents by means of a unique serial number. If registration follows, the registered deed bears the serial number and date of presentation and it preceds any other document presented even seconds later. In other terms, the time at which documents are submitted in the LR and the serial number of the submission are the decisive criteria to establish the preference between two or more registrations made at the same date refering to the same property.
The Greek LR system does not provide for any type of reservation of priority.
2. Are there any possibilities of that a document presented later may go ahead or prevail in priority rather than other documents or deeds presented earlier?
This is only possible in case a document presented earlier is rejected within the legal deadlines, so the priority order is modified and the registration of a document relating to the same property that was submitted later prevails. Apart from this particular case, there is absolutely no possiblility that a document presented later may prevail in priority over others presented later. The principle of priority is very important from a property law point of view.
3. Let’s suppose a document presented firstly that consequently holds priority but is affected by defects or lack of legal requirements. How long would it keep priority against other document presented later?
The Land Registrar must decide within 24 hours (or 5 days in LR functioning with cadastral data) following the presentation of a deed whether it is admissible for registration or not. Greek law does not provide for a provisional registration, however, if a deed is rejected it retrospectively loses its priority against other documents presented at a later time.
