Property Maintenance in Greece: A Landlord's Guide

Maintenance is where rental returns quietly leak away. A boiler that fails in January, a roof terrace that lets water into the flat below, a lift that needs a shared overhaul, a small leak nobody reported until it became a big one. None of it is dramatic, but together it decides whether a tenancy is calm and profitable or a string of expensive surprises. This guide covers the working system: who is responsible for what under Greek law, what to maintain before it breaks, how to handle emergencies, what it costs, and how to run it all when you are not in the country.

Who is responsible for repairs, the landlord or the tenant?

Greek leases are governed by the Civil Code (Articles 574 to 618). The principle is simple: the landlord must hand over the property fit for its agreed use and keep it that way, while the tenant must use it with care and put right what their own use damages. In practice that draws a clean line.

The principle from the Civil Code is that damage from ordinary or agreed use falls on the tenant, and everything else falls on the landlord. The landlord's duty to keep the property fit for its agreed use sits in Article 575, and the tenant's duty to use it with care and return it in good order sits in Articles 592 and 599. Appliances are the usual grey zone, so a furnished let should say in the lease who repairs or replaces the fridge, the air-conditioning and the washing machine. The deposit, normally one to two months, is the backstop for tenant-caused damage beyond fair wear.

What should you maintain before it breaks?

Reactive-only maintenance is the expensive way to own a flat. A short preventive routine catches the failures that do real damage.

• Before winter: service the boiler and heating, check the roof terrace and any flashing, clear gutters and drains, and test that windows and shutters close against the rain.

• Before summer: service the air-conditioning, check for damp and mould from the wet months, and confirm the water heater and pressure are sound.

• Once a year: a quick walk-through of the flat and the common areas, photographed, to catch slow problems (a hairline crack, a dripping valve, a tile lifting) while they are still small.

• Always: make it easy for the tenant to report a problem early. A leak found on day one is a plumber. The same leak found in month three is a plumber, a damaged ceiling and an unhappy neighbour.

How should you handle an emergency repair?

Speed and authority are the two things that matter. A burst pipe or a dead boiler in winter needs someone who can act, not a chain of messages across time zones.

• For the tenant: one clear channel to report urgent problems, and the expectation that they report immediately. Under the lease the tenant must let you put right a fault, and must not ignore one that gets worse.

• For the resident owner: a plumber, an electrician and a handyman you trust, on call, and the willingness to authorise a fix fast when it is genuinely urgent.

• For the remote owner: a pre-agreed contractor and a spending limit they can act on without waiting for you, so a Sunday-night leak is stopped on Sunday night.

If the landlord fails to make a repair that is their responsibility, the tenant's formal route is a written demand (an exodiko) and, if it is ignored, a claim for a rent reduction or, in a serious case, to end the lease. That is the failure mode to avoid, and it is avoided by responding quickly.

Who pays the common charges (koinochrista)?

Every flat in a shared building carries a monthly charge for the common parts, the koinochrista, set out by the building's manager (the diachiristis) and divided between flats by their share (the chiliosta, thousandths) under the building's regulation and the horizontal-property law, Law 3741/1929. The law does not fix who pays as between landlord and tenant, so the lease decides, but the market convention is clear:

Two points owners miss. First, when the flat is empty between tenants, the owner pays the running charges too, so void periods cost more than just lost rent. Second, an extraordinary assessment (a new lift, a façade repair) lands on the owner regardless of the tenant, and in older buildings these are not rare. Budget for them.

How do you run maintenance as a remote or overseas owner?

Most Golden Visa and overseas owners never see the flat between visits, so maintenance has to run without them. The parts of a system that works:

• A keyholder on the ground. Someone who can let a contractor in, check the flat between tenancies, and represent you at a building meeting. A flat no one can enter is a flat no one can fix.

• Vetted contractors with proper paperwork. Trades who invoice properly (with a Greek tax number and a receipt), so the work is accountable and the building manager and tax position stay clean.

• Clear spending limits. A standing rule that small repairs go ahead without asking and anything larger needs your approval keeps urgent fixes moving while keeping control of the budget.

• Photo reporting. Dated photographs of the problem and the finished work, so you can see what you are paying for from abroad.

One trap specific to absent owners: many home-insurance policies reduce or void cover once a property is left unoccupied beyond a set period, often around 30 to 60 days. If your flat sits empty between tenants, check the policy wording, because an unreported leak in an uninsured empty flat is the worst case.

What does maintenance cost in Athens?

Costs move with the market and the building, so treat these as planning ranges to confirm locally, not quotes. As a rule of thumb, set aside roughly 1% of the property's value a year for maintenance, more for an older flat.

On tax, do not over-expect. A private landlord in Greece is given a flat 5% allowance on gross rent that already stands in for maintenance and depreciation, so individual repair receipts do not reduce your tax beyond that, as covered in our rent collection guide.

What is different about older central-Athens buildings?

Much of the central-Athens rental stock, including the conversion flats that the €250,000 Golden Visa route concentrates in, sits in buildings from the 1960s and 1970s. They reward the rent, but they carry specific maintenance realities:

• Ageing services. Original plumbing risers and electrical wiring that were not built for modern loads, and that fail at the joints first.

• Damp and single glazing. Older flats hold moisture, so ventilation, working shutters and the odd dehumidifier earn their keep.

• Shared big-ticket items. An old lift or a tired façade becomes a building-wide cost that hits every owner through the reserve and special assessments.

• Balcony and façade upkeep. Spalling concrete on balconies and cornices is a safety and liability issue, not a cosmetic one. Watch it.

A conversion flat brings its own quirk: a unit changed from commercial to residential use may have services that were sized for an office, not a home, so check heating, water pressure and electrical capacity early rather than after a tenant complains.

What to do next

Set a simple preventive routine, agree the repair and common-charge split clearly in the lease, and put a fast, authorised emergency channel in place, especially if you are not in Greece. If you would rather not coordinate trades and building meetings from abroad, mamaXO's Full Service plan handles maintenance end to end, with approved contractors, agreed spending limits and photo-documented work, and you still only pay our fee on rent actually collected. For an estimate for your Athens flat, get in touch. If you are weighing up doing this yourself versus a manager, our guide to choosing a property management company sets out what to compare.