Obligations of the lawyer in property law:
A. Investment's control:
1. It is important to decide on the kind of property you wish to purchase.
2. Once you have made the decision, you have to decide whether you will purchase on your own funds or with a bank loan or with any other way, and discuss the terms
3. Choose your property according to your needs i.e. close to a school, bus/metro station etc.
4. Estimate and evaluate the properties you found as most appropriate to your personal and financial needs
B. Check of the property you decided to purchase
A lawyer is appointed by the law to check the deeds ('titloi idioktisias') on the owner of the land, to form and prepare the various legal and financial terms of the contract and to investigate if there are any mortgages on the property you want to buy, or other law suits against it.
The mortgages and the law suits may be against the seller,or, previous owners of the specific property. When a property has legal problems, the purchase of the land should be thoroughly examined. The reason is that the mortgage follows the new owner and it can never disappear, unless we take certain legal actions. Otherwise, the new buyer would be obliged to "erase" the mortgages with his/her own expenses, and not the old one.
C. Building's control
An engineer should check the land / building/ flat for the following elements:
1. the quality of the building's cement
2. the building's plans
3. the specific constructing conditions to built this specific house
4. if the amount of square meters of the house are the exact ones, according to the deeds and the declared ones to the town constructing office (“Poleodomia”) and the Municipality
If you purchase a plot, then the engineer will necessarily check if the plot's owner owes money to the town planning office or to the social security office and if it is free from any archeological attachments and forestry attachments.
At the end, it is advisable to check if if the constructor or the constructor of the building /flat /house/ owes money to the social security regarding the employees hired, to built the property.