In a press conference held today by the representatives of the coordinating committee of the Notarial Associations of Greece, the Plenary Assembly of the Bar Associations of Greece, the outgoing president of PSDATM and general secretary of CLGE-European Council of Surveyors-Engineers and the Panhellenic Federation of Property Owners referred to the problems arising in the off-plan construction following the issuance of its recent decision Co for off-plan building calling on the political parties to take an immediate stand on the problem of thousands of privately owned small plots of land, whose property is being devalued.

In more detail, at the press conference, among others, it was pointed out:

The no. 176/2023 decision of the Council of Ministers in combination with the long-term inaction of the Greek State to implement what is attributable to it from the laws it has passed since 1923 and after, leads especially the off-plan micro-property to discredit and economic withering, causing a severe social problem in the average Greek family, especially in the region.

Off-plan parcels acquired as fair and buildable, many of them were not legally issued building permits, taxes were paid and are still being paid as fair and buildable, today they are unable to build. The State does not answer the question about the fate of the existing building permits that were legally issued by the competent agencies.

The State, on the other hand, has consistently refused to characterize and define which roads are shared, as the relevant provisions are nebulous and inapplicable while the procedures are non-existent. Even in cases where the Greek State demarcated and defined rural roads (case of distributions), it does not recognize them.

Under these conditions, small owners are discredited while property owners who have been designated “strategic investments” or investments of “national interest” can build off-plan where others cannot, on their own terms and fasttruck procedures.

In particular, the president of notaries Giorgos Rouskas said:

We request that the off-plan pitches, which were created before December 24, 2003, the date of entry into force of Law 3212/2003, be buildable regardless of whether they have the minimum frontage on a shared public road defined by Article 10, paragraph 1 of Law 3212 /2003. In this way, the previous status of these properties is maintained, on the basis of which building permits were also issued, and the principle of justified trust of the governed towards the administration is not violated.

It is also necessary:

1) Direct legislative regulation for the construction of unplanned and buildable real estate

2) Immediate establishment and implementation of a procedure for defining public roads

3) Establishment of uniform application rules for off-plan building in the Greek territory.

The president of the lawyers Dimitris Vervesos, among others, pointed out:

“Citizens are today unfairly called to pay for mistakes and impasses of the Greek State, which until today has not characterized the network of public roads in the areas outside the plan, while at the same time the anarchic zoning of the settlements has made a large part of the plots within the plan unbuildable , while the citizens pay all kinds of taxes and fees.”

Furthermore, the president of the Zakynthos Bar Association, Yiannis Giatras, said:

“There is a widespread opinion that unplanned construction causes damage to the environment because only cities are built while fields are cultivated. On the contrary, a huge social problem is created by its abolition, because the issue mainly concerns small lots in which poor rural families had placed their hopes for securing the future of their children.

In Greece, not only cities and settlements are built. This is what the logic of our residential development says since the year 1923. The state cannot require citizens to be ahead of it. The reason that justified the necessity of off-plan building for an entire century was to precede housing rationalization.”

The president of POMIDA and the International Union of Property Owners (UIPI), lawyer Stratos Paradias, emphasized:

“Building outside the plan is building with rules and not arbitrary.

The ban on building outside the plan devalues ​​the property of the Greek people and the Greek family and brutally violates the human right to property.

It is disappointing that the political parties did not make the slightest mention in their programs of how it will be resolved.

The immediate recognition by law as public, at least of all asphalted roads and with all the road networks belonging to the State and the Municipalities, and all the fields that have legal access is required”.