The payment of the transfer tax is mandatory during the purchase of the immovable property in Greece, the property is taxed in two ways:

3.09% (instead of 10% as before January 1, 2014) for the newly built properties with the construction permit issued before January 1, 2006, and the secondary housing properties irrespective of the date of issue of the construction permit.

24% in case if a construction permit was issued after the above mentioned date. Payment of tax 24% is suspended until 31/12/2022 (article 6, VAT Code, L.2859/2000).

After the purchase of the property the owner should also pay annually the unified property tax (On the 1^st of January 2014, the Greek Parliament passed a new unified property tax law (ΕΝ.Φ.Ι.Α). The new tax replaces the "emergency property tax" imposed in 2011 which was collected through the Electric company utility bill (ΔΕΗ). The new tax applies to individuals as well as to entities, including the land and farm plots. In the case of co-ownership, the payment will correspond to the percentage of the ownership of the property. The rate of property tax can be calculated on the web site of the tax authority using the personal pass code.

The following proprietary rights are subject to the new tax:

• Personal property
• Common property
• Joint shared property
• Freehold (acquired rights of long –term use of the residential property) etc.

Furthermore, the tax is imposed on such categories as the parking in the buildings, covered parking areas, additional premises and swimming pools.

It should be mentioned that, the property vendors will be paying the so called tax on fictitious profit that can arise during the process of property sale. As such profit could be considered possible disproportionate difference between the fair assessed value and the actual commercial value specified in the contract of sale, which is usually considerably overvalued. The tax rate for this kind of profit is 15% and is imposed in the case of “secondary real estate”. At the same time there is a possibility of allowance subject to the age of the property.

The unified property tax comprises main tax and supplementary tax. The main tax applies for buildings, plots, fields and so on. The main tax is calculated on the basis of the location of the property, size, use, age of the property, the floor on which the property is located and the number of open property sides. The supplementary tax (so called sumptuary tax) is imposed on the property with the assessed value which exceeds €30000 for one owner and 600000€ for shared ownership. The tax rate ranges from 0.1 to 1% from the assessed value.

a) Scale and rates for income tax

b) Rental income as well as an income from the movable assets (excluding the cases when the income is taxed at source with no further tax liability) is taxed on the basis of the scale below:

Tax scale on income from the real estate and movable property

The tax rate fixed in the taxation scale of the employees and pensioners is reduced:

a) when the income is up to twenty one thousand € 21000, it is lessened by €2100. In case when the tax is less than two thousand  and hundred € 2100 the amount of reduction is limited by the tax amount.

b) The tax credit of a maximum € 2100 is reduced by €100 for every additional €1000 of income over € 21000.In order the reduced tax amount to remain the same, the taxpayer has to submit the receipts issued in accordance with provisions of the Payment Regulations or the issued in the EU member states in relation to the purchase of the goods and services by the taxpayer, spouse or the dependents. The total amount of the receipts should represent 25% of submitted taxable income in accordance with the scale of this paragraph. The total amount of the receipts should not exceed €10500. Incurred expenses are accepted only if they were included in the declaration in proper time, they are calculated together for both spouses and are distributed among them according to declared taxable individual income in accordance with the scale of the present paragraph.

In the case when the presented amount of receipts is less than the necessary one, the tax is increased with a positive difference between the required receipts amount, highest limit of ten thousand and five hundred  €10.500and the presented receipts amount which is multiplied by 22%.