By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

The head of AADE, Giorgos Pitsilis, gives a second chance to thousands of property owners who rent out their properties to declare the leases that have expired without penalty until March 31st.

Property owners affected by the decision have one month to declare lease solutions made until 12/31/2022.

The declaration each time of the termination of a lease – and of course also of its conclusion – is an obligation of the owner and must be done by the end of the following month from the start or end of the lease. The start or end declaration is done electronically in the system taxisnet in contrast to the lease contract which is drawn up in writing and then submitted electronically to the AADE platform.

If the owner does not declare the termination of the lease, then for AADE, the lease is still valid with all that this entails, which is why the Pitsili decision becomes particularly important.

In the lease, it must be made clear with a separate reference what the tenant’s obligations are regarding, among other things, the maintenance of the property, any repairs thereof, communal expenses, the use of communal areas, utility bills, the payment of stamp duty (not required anymore in the cases of renting houses), any prohibitions deriving from the applicable regulation of the apartment building, any insurance of the building. In the initial statement, all of this is stated in writing, but any subsequent modification of these, extension of the lease, readjustment of the lease can now be done electronically.

Especially with regard to utility bills, his recommendation DEDDEE to landlords is not to hand over the keys to their properties to the tenant unless he/she has first signed an electricity contract with the provider of his/her choice so as to avoid power theft.

Something that does not apply to EYDAP since the provision and responsibility for paying the bills always falls on the owner and in this case he must regularly check if the bill is paid by the tenant – as well as utilities.