Land registry

Το land registry is the general record of real property. It includes the geometric description and the ownership status of each parcel of land. According to article 1 of N. 2664/1998 "The National Land Registry is a system of legal, technical and other additional information organized on a property-centric basis for all properties in the territory". 

The above registration is carried out through the process of land registration in accordance with the provisions of Law 2308/1995, i.e. the collection, processing and registration of deeds and other registrable rights held by natural or legal persons and the connection of these rights with specific properties. At the same time, legal information is also recorded (how the right was acquired, details of the act by which the right has been acquired, etc.) and the properties are located, depicted and demarcated on the cadastral charts. Land registration begins with the declaration of an area under land registration and is completed with the launch of the Land Registry system, which from this moment on replaces the Mortgage Registry system in the specific area. 

The operation of the Land Registry begins based on the first registrations. According to article 6 par. 1 of Law 2664/1998 "First entries are those registered as initial entries in the Land Registry, by transfer from the land registers". The said initial registrations must be accurate and correct as all subsequent registrations are based on them, while Law 2664/1998 expressly states in par. 7 that after the expiry of the period for disputing the first registrations, they become final and produce irrefutable presumption in favor of of those brought with these first registrations as beneficiaries for the rights to which they relate. 

Regarding the questioning of inaccurate initial entries, Law 2664/1998 provides for both judicial and extrajudicial correction procedures.

Indicative:

A. Judicial Correction

1. Proceedings of article 6 par. 2

It is exercised by the beneficiary of a registrable right on a land-registered property in cases where this is disputed and it is a declaratory or claim action against the person listed as the beneficiary of the right.  

1. Correction of the "unknown owner" entries in article 6, paragraph 3

In the cases where the initial registrations indicate "unknown owner" as the beneficiary, the beneficiary of the registrable right has three options:

• Extrajudicial rectification by the procedure of manifest error
• Application before the Land Judge of the location of the property under the rules of voluntary jurisdiction.
• Exercise of the action of article 6 par. 2 against the Greek State

1. Correction of descriptive and geometric elements of the property article 6 par. 8

In cases where the error in the initial entries lies in the inaccuracy of the descriptive and geometric data of the property, the beneficiary may request the correction of these by petitioning the Land Registry Judge of the location of the property according to the rules of voluntary jurisdiction.

B. Extrajudicial Correction

1. Article 6 paragraph 4 procedure

In the event that the right registered in the initial registration had been transferred, altered, encumbered or abolished by virtue of a legal act, administrative act, court decision or other procedural act, which was registered in the books of the mortgage registry before the date of registration of the first registrations, the correction of the original registration is not required to be done by an irrevocable court decision, but the beneficiary of the registrable right may submit an application before the competent Land Office.

1. Article 18 Manifest Error Correction Procedure

In the case of obvious errors, i.e. errors that are easy to ascertain, the correction can be made by the Head of the Land Registry Office, following a request from anyone with a legal interest or ex officio. The errors in question may concern the person of the beneficiary (incorrect details of name, surname, identity card number, patronymic, matriname, date of birth, etc.), the right (incorrect details on the type of registered right, e.g. full or partial ownership , usufruct, etc. and/or the reason for acquisition, e.g. donation, parental benefit, etc. and the title of acquisition (incorrect details of a notarial document, court decision, administrative act, etc., e.g. document number, details of issuer/issuing authority, etc., incorrect details of transfer/recording of title deed, e.g. mortgage registry, volume, number, date, etc.).

In our law office, we take on lots of cases concerning the institution of the land registry, providing legal advice, submitting statements and objections before land registry offices, making out-of-court or judicial corrections of errors in the original registrations, and in general any action deemed necessary for the registration