Greek Land Registry Check & Correction
Across the whole of Greece, by licensed civil engineers. Find out what the Hellenic Cadastre actually holds on your property — and what it takes to put it right.
- Written status report
- Fixed correction cost
- No need to travel to Greece
Greece has two names for the same thing, which is where most confusion starts. The Hellenic Cadastre (Ελληνικό Κτηματολόγιο) is the official national land registry. It replaced the old system of local mortgage registries (υποθηκοφυλακεία), where ownership was recorded against a person’s name rather than against the land itself. Today almost the entire country is mapped, and nearly every plot, apartment and field has been issued a KAEK — its unique national property number.
So there is already an official state record of your property: its area, its boundaries, the rights registered over it, and who owns it.
The problem is that this record is not always correct. Wrong square metres, boundaries that do not match your survey plan, property registered to “unknown owner”, an inheritance nobody ever declared, an overlap with the neighbouring plot. Most owners discover it at the worst possible moment — at the notary’s office, with the sale already scheduled.
We start with a diagnosis, not with paperwork
Most firms will ask you to gather documents first and only then tell you what is wrong. We do the opposite.
Give us a KAEK — or, if you do not have one, the address and your title deed — and we assemble what the Greek state currently holds on that specific property and put it in front of you on a single page: what is registered, where it diverges from reality, what procedure is required, and what it costs. Before you commit to anything.
In practice: you email us a KAEK or your deed. You get back a written picture of the property’s status and a clear proposal of what to do. You do not need to visit the property — or even be in Greece.
What goes wrong in the cadastre
The square metres on the cadastre do not agree with your deed or with an actual survey.
Wrong name, tax number, ownership share or deed reference — corrected through a simpler administrative route.
The outline on the cadastral map does not match your topographic survey plan.
Your property appears to encroach on the neighbour’s, or the reverse.
The property exists on the map but with no registered holder. The most serious case.
A deceased relative is still on record because acceptance of inheritance was never completed.
“Unknown owner” — why you cannot leave it
When a property is recorded as belonging to an unknown owner, the cadastre recognises nobody as the holder. It cannot be sold, mortgaged or developed — and once the applicable deadlines pass, there is a real risk of it reverting to the Greek State.
Those deadlines have been extended repeatedly and differ by region, depending on when the cadastral survey for that area was completed. Do not assume you have time because you read a date somewhere. We check the deadline that actually applies to your area and give it to you in writing.
Depending on the case, the correction runs either through the administrative procedure for correcting initial entries, or — where no deed exists — through a claim of adverse possession supported by the appropriate evidence. We tell you which of the two you are in from the start.
KAEK: what it is and where to find it
The KAEK (Κωδικός Αριθμός Εθνικού Κτηματολογίου) is the unique twelve-digit number given to every property in Greece — the equivalent of a tax number, but for land and buildings. Every plot, apartment and field has its own.
You will find it on your cadastre submission receipt, on the cadastral sheet, on a recent topographic survey plan, or through the public cadastral map viewer. If you cannot locate it, we find it from your title deed.
We check properties on behalf of their owner, or as part of legitimate due diligence before a purchase. We do not carry out searches for third parties’ personal data.
Owners living outside Greece
A large part of our cadastral work is for owners in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and the United Kingdom who inherited or bought a property in Greece and cannot spend weeks queuing at Greek public offices.
We work in English or Greek, documents move electronically, and where physical presence is legally required we act under a power of attorney. If a site inspection or a new survey is needed, we do it ourselves.
Can a non-EU citizen own property in Greece?
Yes. EU citizens buy freely. Non-EU citizens can also buy, but parts of Greece — including Samos and the other border regions — require Ministry of Defence clearance. It is a routine application and it does not block a legitimate purchase; it simply needs to be filed correctly and early.
What we handle
- Full cadastral check of a property and a written status report
- Correction of obvious errors and of initial entries
- Correction of geometry and boundaries, with a new survey plan where required
- Unknown-owner cases
- Property declarations, including late ones
- Undeclared inheritances, working alongside a notary
- EGSA ’87 topographic survey plans with an electronic diagram code, where the procedure requires one
- A complete file before a transfer, so nothing surfaces at the notary’s desk
Why an engineer, not only a lawyer
Most cadastral problems are not legal — they are geometric. Wrong area, shifted boundaries, a building that was never mapped correctly. Those are solved by measurement, survey and a properly documented plan, not by litigation.
Our office has both halves: licensed civil engineers and surveyors who produce the technical evidence, and lawyers we work with where a case genuinely needs one. You do not pay legal fees for what is a measurement problem.
Cadastre on Samos
Properties on the island fall under the Cadastral Office of the North Aegean — Samos Branch. Samos went through cadastral survey and public display of the cadastral tables and diagrams together with Ikaria and Chios, and island properties have since been issued their KAEK numbers.
Our office is based on Samos. In practice that means when a case needs a site inspection, a measurement or a fresh survey, you are not waiting on a crew to be sent from Athens — we are at the property within days, anywhere on the island.
What we see most often on Samos
- Rural plots with unclear boundaries. Dry-stone walls, terraces and boundaries remembered from a grandparent rarely match the geometry the cadastre holds.
- Inheritances left undeclared for decades — very common on island property, where heirs moved abroad or to Athens and the title stayed in the name of someone long deceased.
- Owners outside Greece. A large share of Samos property belongs to the diaspora and to buyers from Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Scandinavia who cannot chase Greek public offices in person.
- Overlaps with adjoining parcels in densely subdivided areas, particularly around Vathy, Karlovasi and Pythagorio.
- “Unknown owner” entries in mountain and remote settlements where a declaration was never filed at all.
If your property is on Samos: send us the KAEK or your title deed and you get back, in writing, what the cadastre shows, where it diverges from reality and what the correction costs — before you commit to anything. If a site inspection is needed, we carry it out ourselves.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a cadastral check cost?
We do not publish a price list for cadastral work, because the scope varies enormously: a misspelled name is not comparable to an unknown-owner case on a plot with three buildings and an undeclared inheritance. We tell you what the check costs before we start it, and we give you the cost of the correction as a fixed written figure once we can see what is actually there — never as an open-ended account.
Is there a land registry in Greece?
Yes — the Hellenic Cadastre. It is a modern, plot-based national registry that has replaced the older person-based mortgage registry system across almost the entire country, and it is now largely digital.
I already declared my property. Do I still need a check?
Declaring it does not guarantee the entry is right. Many errors appeared during the public display stage, after declarations were filed. If you plan to sell, transfer or borrow against the property, the check happens before — not after the process stalls.
Do you only work on Samos?
No. Cadastral work and property valuations cover the whole of Greece. Samos is where we are based and where we can inspect a property at short notice.
What if the property also has unpermitted construction?
Common, especially in older properties. We identify it during the check and deal with it alongside the cadastral issue, so the work is not done twice.