Selling your Crete home: the documents, the taxes, and how long it actually takes

Selling is buying in reverse with more paperwork and a deadline nobody mentions. The buyer in a Greek deed needs a tax number and money; the seller needs a folder of certificates, each from a different authority, several of which expire while you are collecting the others, plus an engineer willing to sign for every square metre you own. This is the article about that folder, the taxes on the way out, and the market you are selling into.

The rules are as verified in August 2026. One of them — the capital-gains tax — has a date in it, and the date matters.

I am not a lawyer or an accountant, and a sale needs both. This is the folder, so you know what you are waiting for and who is holding it up.

The folder

The notary will not draft the deed without the seller’s documents, and the list is long because each one comes from a different authority with a different idea of how fast to work.

From the tax office: a tax clearance certificate, which needs your affairs in order, and a certificate that ENFIA has been paid on the property for the last five years — a year of arrears stops the sale. From the municipality: a certificate that the municipal property charges collected through the electricity bill are clear. From the Cadastre: the current extract showing you as owner with no entries you did not know about. From your engineer: the certificate that the building matches its permit or that any excess has been regularised, with a topographic plan in the national coordinate system, valid for two months, and the electronic property ID compiled from the permit file. From an energy assessor: the energy performance certificate. And your title, and the deed by which you acquired, and if you acquired by inheritance the acceptance registered.

The sequence matters. The engineer’s certificate expires in two months, so it comes last; the tax clearance is quick if you are clean and slow if you are not; the Cadastre extract should be pulled first, because it is where the surprises live. A lawyer sequences this for a living and the fee is small against a deed that falls on the day because a certificate lapsed.

The engineer, and the thing you have to fix first

Every deed carries the engineer’s certificate described in the article on the engineer’s check, and on the selling side it is where plans go wrong. The engineer compares the permit with the building and certifies either that they match or that the differences have been regularised. A closed-in veranda, an extra room on the roof, a pool without a permit — the engineer cannot sign around these, and a deed cannot be made. The regularisation process means declaring the work and paying the fine, and it belongs before the listing, not after the buyer’s engineer has found it and the buyer’s lawyer has reopened the price.

The taxes on the way out

The large one is the one that is not there. Greece has a 15% tax on the gain an individual makes from selling property, and has suspended it year after year since 2014 — most recently, at the time of verification, until 31 December 2026, with every extension decided late in the year. If it lapses, a house bought for €200,000 and sold for €300,000 could owe tax on €100,000, with a time-based allowance the law provides. Nobody can tell you in August whether it will be extended; an accountant can tell you what it would cost you if it is not, which is the number to hold while you decide on timing.

The rest: income tax is not charged on the sale itself; the transfer tax is the buyer’s; VAT does not apply to a private sale of a used home. If you are a non-resident, the price must be paid through a bank into an account in your name, as the article on paying describes from the other side, and your home country may tax the gain under its own rules and the treaty — a second accountant, at home, is part of the cost.

What you pay

The engineer’s certificate and the topographic plan, the energy certificate, the electronic ID: a few hundred euros each. Your agent’s side of the fee if you engaged one, around 2% plus VAT, negotiable and on the agreement you signed. Your lawyer, who you should have. Any regularisation fine. Any arrears. The buyer pays the transfer tax, the notary and the registry; the article on the buyer’s costs is the mirror of this one.

The market you are selling into

In 2026 asking prices on the island were still rising and so were the bank’s valuations, but the first faster than the second, and the portals themselves reported that enquiries had become harder to turn into sales. Sellers remembered last year’s prices; buyers could see this year’s; and the houses that sold were the ones priced for this year. The article on what property costs has the levels. A realistic price in the spring moves by summer. A hopeful one sits, and a house that has sat is a house buyers negotiate harder on.

Selling from abroad

A notarised power of attorney — at a Greek consulate, or before a notary at home with an apostille and a translation — lets your lawyer sign the deed and receive the price into your Greek account. The consulate appointment is the slow part; book it when you list. Your Greek tax return will need the sale in it the following year, and your Greek bank will want to see where the money is going when you move it out, which is easier when you kept the paperwork from when it came in.

The honest downside

You will collect eight documents from six authorities, in an order, against expiry dates, for a deed that the buyer’s side can delay for reasons of its own. The engineer will find the thing you forgot was never permitted. The capital-gains suspension is a promise renewed annually by a government that has other things on its mind in December. And the price you have in your head is the price from the year you decided to sell, which is not the year you are selling in. None of this is unusual; all of it is a reason to start six months before you need the money.