Usufruct and bare ownership: the Greek house you can buy but not use
A discounted price on a Cretan house often means you are buying the bare ownership while somebody keeps the usufruct for life. How the split works, how the tax table values it by age, and why it does not clear itself off the register when the holder dies.
A Cretan house at a price that looks too good is sometimes exactly that, and sometimes it is a bare ownership. The buyer gets the title, the deed, the Land Registry entry and the tax bill — and an elderly seller keeps the right to live in it, or let it, for the rest of their life. The arrangement is entirely lawful, extremely common in Greek families, and perfectly reasonable to buy into if you know that is what you are doing. The trouble is that the listing rarely says so in a way a foreign buyer registers. Rules as they stood in September 2026, checked against the tax authority’s own circular as circulated by the notarial associations and the Cadastre’s document requirements.
I am not a lawyer or a tax adviser and this is not legal or tax advice. Have the deed read by a Greek lawyer before any deposit; that is the only reliable way to know which of the rules below have been contracted out of.
The split in one minute. Greek law divides full ownership into usufruct (επικαρπία — the right to use and take the fruits, Civil Code article 1142) and bare ownership (ψιλή κυριότητα — everything else). The usufruct is non-transferable by default (article 1166) and ends on the holder’s death (article 1167), though both are default rules the parties may vary. For tax the split is by the usufructuary’s age: 8/10 of full value under 20, falling to 1/10 over 80, under article 65 §6 of law 5219/2025; bare ownership is the remainder under article 66. When the usufructuary dies, the two consolidate and no further tax arises — but the register does not update itself: the Cadastre wants a death certificate.
What each side actually holds
The usufructuary has the use and the fruits: they may live in the property, let it and take the rent, and they carry the ordinary burdens of use. They must not consume the substance of the thing. The bare owner has the title and the reversion — and, until the usufruct ends, essentially nothing else. No occupation. No letting. No rent. No vacant possession to hand to anybody.
That is the whole risk in one line. A bare ownership at a discount is not a discounted house; it is a house whose possession date is a person’s lifespan. For a buyer in their forties acquiring the bare ownership from a seller of sixty, the arithmetic may be perfectly sensible — a long-horizon purchase at a real discount, of the sort European buyers make routinely in other jurisdictions. For a buyer who intends to spend next summer in it, it is a catastrophe dressed as a bargain.
The tax table, which is where the discount comes from
Greek tax law values the two halves by the age of the usufructuary, and the table is worth knowing because it is also, roughly, the market logic.
Under article 65 §6 of law 5219/2025 — the Property Taxation Code, which replaced the old code in July 2025 without changing these percentages — the usufruct is worth:
- 8/10 of full value if the usufructuary is not yet 20
- 7/10 over 20 · 6/10 over 30 · 5/10 over 40
- 4/10 over 50 · 3/10 over 60 · 2/10 over 70 · 1/10 over 80
A usufruct for a fixed term rather than for life is valued at 1/20 of full value per year, capped at 8/10; one held by a legal person is 8/10. Under article 66, the bare ownership is taxed on the full value minus the usufruct value.
Read that table from the buyer’s side. Where an eighty-two-year-old seller retains the usufruct, the usufruct is 1/10 and the bare ownership is 9/10 — so you are paying tax, and in practice most of the price, on nine tenths of the property while having the use of none of it. Where a sixty-year-old retains it, you pay on 7/10. The discount is real, and it is not generous: it is a formula.
One point of housekeeping, because it trips up anything written before mid-2025. The table used to sit at article 15 of law 2961/2001. It now sits at article 65 of law 5219/2025 (Government Gazette Α΄130, 18 July 2025). The percentages are identical; the citation is not, and a good deal of Greek material online still cites the old one.
What happens at the end
When the usufructuary dies, the two rights consolidate in the bare owner, and — this is the point of the whole structure — no further tax obligation arises. The bare owner was taxed once, on the reduced value, and that is the end of it. It is why Greek parents transfer bare ownership to children while keeping the usufruct: one tax event, at a discount, with the use retained for life.
What does not happen is any automatic tidying of the record. Consolidation has to be evidenced, and the Hellenic Cadastre’s own document list requires a death certificate where bare ownership was acquired and the usufructuary has since died. A usufruct left on the register after the holder is gone is not a harmless historical entry — it is a defect that will surface at the next sale, at the worst possible moment, and it is one of the more common reasons an apparently simple Cretan title turns out to need a month’s work. If the property you are buying shows a usufruct in favour of someone who died in 2009, that is a job to be finished before completion, not after.
The two assumptions to stop making
“The usufruct will just die with him.” By default it will — article 1167 — but article 1167 is a dispositive rule, one the parties may derogate from by agreement, and so is article 1166 on transferability. A deed can provide otherwise. That is not exotic; it is why the deed has to be read.
“I can buy the usufruct out.” By default you cannot. Article 1166 makes the usufruct itself non-transferable and permits only the assignment of its exercise, for no longer than the usufruct lasts. So the usufructuary can let you use the house; they cannot ordinarily sell you the right. What is normally negotiated instead is a voluntary release of the usufruct in the same deed — which is a matter for agreement and price, not for entitlement.
A related right worth recognising when you meet it: οίκηση, the right of habitation under article 1183, is treated equivalently for these purposes and can sit on a title just as quietly as a usufruct.
Where it shows up in Crete
Overwhelmingly in inherited village property. A parent transfers the bare ownership to children and keeps the usufruct; the children later want to sell; the buyer is offered a house that one of the sellers has no power to deliver empty. Or a widow holds a usufruct over a house her late husband’s children own, and the family agrees to sell — which they can, but the deed has to carry the widow’s release, and her signature is a negotiation rather than a formality.
None of this is a reason to walk away. It is a reason to ask one question early: who holds the usufruct, how old are they, and are they signing? The answer changes the price, the timetable and sometimes the whole proposition. It also belongs in the same conversation as inheritance and wills, where the same structures appear from the other direction.
The honest downside
The structure is transparent once you know to look for it and nearly invisible if you do not, because nothing about a bare ownership looks different in a listing, a photograph or a viewing. The tax table is public and mechanical, but the property tax apportionment between usufructuary and bare owner uses the same fractions under a law number that no public-institution source confirms, so treat that part as indicative. And the codification is recent enough that much of the Greek material you will find online, including from professionals, still cites the repealed article — which is a small illustration of the larger point: on this subject, do not rely on anything you read, here included, over the deed itself and a Greek lawyer’s reading of it.
Disclosure: Honest Crete does not sell or list property. Enquiries sent from this section go to a licensed estate agent, not to us; the full statement is below. Nothing in this article names a developer, a property, a lawyer or any other professional, and it never will.
Worth considering if you are buying on a long horizon, the discount reflects the age table honestly, and your lawyer has confirmed the deed does not vary articles 1166 and 1167. Skip it if you want to use the house — a bare ownership gives you the title and nothing you can sleep in.
What is bare ownership in Greece?
Ψιλή κυριότητα is ownership stripped of the right to use the property and take its income, because that right — the usufruct, επικαρπία — is held by someone else. The bare owner holds the title and, until the usufruct ends, cannot occupy the property, let it, or take the rent.
How is usufruct valued for tax in Greece?
By the age of the usufructuary, on a table now at article 65 §6 of law 5219/2025. The usufruct is worth 8/10 of the full value if the holder is under 20, 7/10 over 20, 6/10 over 30, 5/10 over 40, 4/10 over 50, 3/10 over 60, 2/10 over 70 and 1/10 over 80. Bare ownership is the remainder.
Does a usufruct end when the holder dies?
By default yes — Civil Code article 1167 extinguishes it on the death of the usufructuary, and a usufruct in favour of a legal person ends with that entity. But article 1167 is a default rule the parties may contract out of, so the deed has to be read rather than assumed.
Do I pay tax again when the usufruct ends?
No. Article 66 of law 5219/2025 provides that no further tax obligation arises for the bare owner on the death of the usufructuary. That is the whole point of the structure and the reason Greek families use it for parental gifts.
Can I buy out the usufruct?
Not straightforwardly. Article 1166 makes the usufruct itself non-transferable by default; only its exercise may be assigned, and only for as long as the usufruct lasts. The parties may have derogated from that in the original deed, which is another reason to read it rather than assume.
What happens to the register when the usufructuary dies?
Nothing automatic. Consolidation has to be evidenced and registered — the Hellenic Cadastre requires a death certificate to be filed. A usufruct left sitting on the record after the holder has died will block the next sale until somebody does the paperwork.
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