Property Buyers Guide |
a guide to buying a property in Greece

Buying property in Greece is by far the most common way to own a property overseas. Thousands of people from all nationalities successfully buy a property in Greece or her islands every year.

The number increases on a yearly basis and popular Greek destinations for owning a home in Greece are Crete, Kos, Rhodes, Corfu, Halkidiki, Kefalonia and Zante. The rest of Greece is showing an increase in overseas property purchasers but these are the number one spots for buying property in Greece from 2008.

A few tips on buying a property in Greece:

• Know how much you want to spend before looking - set a budget.
• Make a number of visits to the property and the area before you buy.
• Make sure the property has all the necessary utilities or you could be caught short.
• Have a full structural report done on the property - don´t skimp or you could pay for it later.
• Find out who your neighbours are - do they rent their property out!!
• Take plenty of pictures of each room or perhaps a video of the property and area to study later.
• Always have a thorough legal check of the property and any debts outstanding by a solicitor.
• Lastly. Don´t sign anything if you´re not happy with the contents, get it changed beforehand.

So you´ve agreed a price on the property and are happy with everything above. So what additional costs are there? In general you will need to allow an accross the board sum of about 17% to cover such things as

• Purchase tax is levied on the value of the property in stages between 9-12%.
• Land registry fees of about 0.4% plus stamp duties and certificates.
• Real Estate agent's fees are usually paid by the vendor.
• Property tax is normally around 0.25% of the property's declared value paid annually to cover local services.
• Community tax of around 3% of the property transfer tax which is paid to the local municipality for general public services.

Obviously you will need to leave a deposit on the property probably between 25 - 30% is the normal

There are many mortgage brokers out there nowadays that will assist in obtaining a mortgage for you in Greece even some of the bigger UK Building Societies and Banks offer the facility.

Property Developers may also offer mortgages on their own developments sometimes upto 80% LTV while the local banks will normally only lend upto 60% LTV for non residents.

If you apply for a residencia you will find that the LTV % from banks can be upto 80% so its worth considering as it has other benefits too. View our Mortgages in Greece page for more details and to obtain a quote.

When buying a property in Greece there will inevitabley be some point at which you will need to transfer monies to pay for deposits, balances or general annual running costs of your property. Do Not use your local bank to do this for two main reasons,

• 1) the charges and
• 2) the rate which you will receive.

The overseas property market is now well established and there are many regulated foreign exchange specialists out there who can both better any rates from banks and offer free charges for transferring your money.

We transfer literally millions of pounds worth of currency each year on behalf of our clients and we use Halo Financial as our primary source of money transfers. Contact them for a competitive quote before committing yourself to anyone else.

For a deatiled Guide to Buying Property in Greece visit our parent website Property Abroad - Greece