Inheritance Law

Our Law Offices have a wide range of expertise in Greek Inheritance Law. There are numerous issues that can arise in inheritance cases. Our law offices can walk you through the often confusing Greek Civil law system.

Some of the specific issues we routinely handle for our clients are as follows:

  • Wills - tracking and identifying if there is a will that has been registered with the Greek Courts.
    1. Or, in the alternative, obtaining certificates that no Greek will has been registered and no documents are on file, under the deceased's name in the Greek First Instance Court's archives.
  • Interpretation of Wills
    1. Certified translation of foreign wills
    2. Registration of foreign wills
    3. Wills registered abroad filing with Greek Court
    4. Advising on draft of foreign will including Greek property (trusts, testamentary wills, and pour over wills) there can be huge problems with a pour over will in Greece which includes Greek property that is placed into a foreign trust. (See both our Trust Law page and our article Trusts in Greece; Damaging One's Title to Land)
  • Identifying the heirs
    1. Legal portion, KLIRONOMETERION
    2. If will exists but unnamed child/adopted child etc.
  • Identifying the hereditary property
  • Researching Property Titles
    1. Traveling to local land registry or mortgage office
    2. Researching at the local tax office
  • Property management - assist with rental of property, collecting rental income declaring rental income to tax office, drafting leases, evictions, annual income tax declarations including income from rentals.
  • Verifying tax status of hereditary properties (verifying taxes owed, administrative court lawsuits in cases of wrongful taxation).
  • Obtaining Certificates- for many of the issues above certificates are needed and issued by administrative and court agencies. These must often be ordered, picked up and filed with your other legal documents.
  • Filing Inheritance Tax Declarations (tax forms declaring hereditary properties and calculations of property tax values, taxable share of the estate and entitlement deductions)
  • Notarial Acceptance of Inheritance (drafting the document that registers the heirs)