The engineer's check: what a building survey in Crete covers, what it costs, and why locals skip it

There is a sentence that every foreign buyer in Crete hears at some point: “the engineer has certified it”. It is true, and it means less than it sounds. The certificate attached to a Greek deed is the seller’s engineer stating, as the law requires, that the building does not exceed its permit — or that where it does, the excess has been declared and paid for. It does not say the roof is sound, the extension was regularised on paper only, or the structure was built to the code in force. For those things you need your own engineer, and this article is about what that person does, what it costs, and why the people who have lived here all their lives mostly do not bother.

I am not an engineer; my uncle is, and most of what follows I learned watching him look at houses that other people had already bought.

What the law requires, and what it does not

Since law 4495/2017, every deed that transfers a property in Greece must carry an owner’s declaration and an engineer’s certificate that there are no illegal constructions beyond the permit, with a topographic plan in the national coordinate system attached. Where illegal work exists and has been put through the regularisation process, the certificate says so and records the payment. The certificate is valid for two months, so it is issued during the transaction, by the seller’s engineer, for the seller. In recent years a second document has joined it: the electronic property ID, a digital file compiled by an engineer with the permit, drawings, certificates and planning status, which the notary needs for electronic filing.

Both are real and useful. Neither is for you. A property can have a spotless certificate and a complete electronic ID and still have a roof that fails in the first November storm, a terrace that was regularised as a “semi-open space” and is in fact a bedroom, or a plot whose boundaries on the ground differ from the ones on the title by a strip a neighbour has been farming for thirty years.

What your engineer looks at

Permit against building. The permit drawings, the as-built drawings if any, and the building in front of them. Where they differ, what was done about it and whether the regularisation covers what was actually built. This is where the illegal constructions that sink Cretan purchases are found.

Title against ground against Cadastre. The plot’s area and boundaries on the title, on the topographic plan, in the Cadastre and on the earth. In Crete these four disagree more often than anywhere I know, because the land was divided among heirs for generations before anyone measured it.

Structure. The structural system — reinforced concrete frame, stone walls, mixed — and the seismic code it was built under, which changed materially in 1959, 1985, 1995 and 2000. Cracks that are cosmetic, and cracks that are not. The article on earthquakes, insurance and the building code goes into what the dates mean on an island that moves.

The things that cost money. The roof and its waterproofing; damp and its source; the electrical installation and whether it was ever certified; the plumbing; the cesspit or the sewer connection and its condition; the water supply — mains, well, tank — and its pressure; the heating and cooling; the pool and its equipment if there is one. The article on what a home costs to run is what the list becomes in euros per year.

For a plot. The planning terms from the planning office in writing, the road and whether it is lawfully public, the forest-map status, the shoreline line on the coast, any archaeological zone, and whether the plot has the area and the frontage the rules require — the article on buying land explains why the road is the question that decides most plots in 2026.

What it costs, and when

A pre-purchase check on a house is a few hundred euros; a full topographic survey of a plot, which is a day of field work and a drawing to the national standard, is more. The report comes in a week or two, and it should come before you pay a deposit under a pre-contract, because the pre-contract commits you to a date and the report is the thing that might tell you not to keep it. The article on the process puts the check where it belongs: after the lawyer’s title search has said the seller can sell, and before any money is at risk.

Why locals skip it

Because they do not need it, and that is not the same as it not being needed. A Cretan buying a house in the village where they grew up knows who built it, from whom the stone came, which year the extension went up and why the neighbour’s fence is where it is. Their cousin is an engineer and their uncle laid the floor. That is an information system, and it works; it is simply one you cannot join by arriving. The formal survey is the substitute, and it is a good one.

Reading the report

A good report is not a verdict; it is a list with prices next to it. A roof that needs redoing is a number you take to the negotiation. An extension that was never regularised is a number plus a question about who pays the fine. A plot that does not match the title is a reason to walk away. The engineer will tell you which is which; your lawyer will tell you what to do about it; you decide. The article on who does what is the cast list.

The honest downside

You will be paying for a second opinion on a document the law already required, and the seller will sometimes take it as an insult. Engineers are busy in summer and the good ones have a queue. The report will find things — every Cretan house older than a decade has things — and you will have to decide what matters, which takes judgment you may not feel you have. And nothing in the report tells you about the neighbour, the goat bells at five in the morning, or the road in February. For those, stand there yourself.