Ido called me excited. “I found the villa. Check it for me quickly, I don't want to lose it.”
He had flown to the Peloponnese two days earlier, and already in the first minute by the gate he knew this was it. An old stone house, renovated, a large garden smelling of an old summer, and in its center a blue pool that looked as if it had been built exactly for him. The seller was pleasant, told him about the family that had grown up there for generations, about the good neighbors, about the days they sat on the terrace and watched the sunset over the mountains. The agent was available at any hour. The price seemed reasonable for a rising market. Ido wanted to sign that same week, before someone else “pounced” on it, as he put it to me on the phone.
He came to me for one reason only: “I don't understand Greek and I don't understand Greek land registration. I need someone to tell me whether it's safe.” That didn't surprise me, because Ido is an accountant who is used to reading every small line in every contract he signs in Israel, a man who waives no professional check for anything. But in Greece he suddenly felt like a guest in someone else's home - without the language, without familiarity with the system, and his usual confidence did not help him much.
I answered him what I answer every client who gets excited about a property before it has been checked: enthusiasm is not due diligence, and it is exactly the emotion that people in this field exploit. I explained that with rural properties in Greece, especially ones that have been extended or renovated over the years without close supervision, there is often a gap between what actually exists on the ground and what is recorded in the original plan. I asked him to send a licensed surveyor to check the actual boundaries against the registry, before he transferred a single euro.
“It will cost money and delay me. What if someone else pounces on it in the meantime?” Ido wavered.
I told him I would rather he lose one villa than buy a problem he couldn't sell on. He agreed, with a heavy heart, and paid for the survey out of his own pocket.
The surveyor arrived a week later. His finding reached me by email, with a plan file attached. I read it twice because I didn't want to be wrong about something like this.
Part of the pool - not all of it, about a third, the western side, was built beyond the boundary of the registered plot. On land that officially belongs to the neighboring plot.
I called Ido. He was silent for a few seconds and then asked the question everyone asks at that moment: “How is that even possible? The pool has been there for years, I saw it, it doesn't look like anything problematic.”
That is exactly the point. Construction that crosses a plot boundary does not become lawful with time, not in Greece and not anywhere else. Someone, at some stage, perhaps the previous owners, perhaps a contractor who worked by estimate and not by measurement, extended the pool without verifying the exact boundary line, and nobody has corrected it since. The neighbor may not have known, may have known and didn't object as long as nothing was being sold, may simply not have cared - until someone comes along who wants to buy the property seriously, orders a proper survey, and puts it on the table.
I approached the seller with the findings and asked for a settlement: a written consent from the neighbor, registration of an easement, or moving the boundary line by mutual agreement - any solution that would close the gap before signing. The seller first tried to downplay it. “It's a technical matter, and nobody will say a word.” As if the fact that the neighbor had been silent until today were a guarantee that he would stay silent tomorrow. I explained to him that these are two completely different things: a neighbor's silence is not a waiver of a right, and certainly not a registered arrangement that binds him or whoever comes after him. When I made clear that we would not proceed without a formal, registered settlement, he stopped answering the agent's phone calls.
Two weeks went by. No response. Ido understood the message before I even had to say it.
Ido walked away from the deal.
He called me after the decision was made, not angry, just thoughtful. “I thought I was buying a house with a pool. I almost bought a lawsuit as well.”
That is exactly what would have happened. One day, sooner or later, when the neighbor decided to build, to sell, or just to measure his plot - he would ask for what belongs to him. And Ido would have been left with a split pool, a neighbor dispute in a foreign country whose courts he doesn't know, and a property that can't be sold on without revealing exactly the same problem to the next buyer.
The question I would ask in your place
- Who actually checked the property's boundaries on the ground against the registry - not only the ownership documents, but the plan?
- Am I willing to give up a property I have already fallen in love with, if the check reveals a problem the seller doesn't want to settle?
- Who paid for this check - and if the answer is “the seller recommended his appraiser,” is that the appraiser who works for me?
Stories are based on real situations, with identifying details changed. Not legal advice.
Translated from the Hebrew original. עברית