Surveying

A group of climbers, research geologists and topography specialists have recalculated the altitude of Mt Olympus, Greece's highest mountain, with modern methods, a century after the Swiss surveyor and alpinist Marcel Kurz in 1921.

His work was completed in 1923, calculating the altitude at 2,917.85 meters.

Acquiring a newly built home is turning into an elusive dream for the vast majority of Greeks.

The main reason is the jump in selling prices stemming from the rising construction costs, but also higher land rates and higher energy efficiency standards that all new properties must now to meet.

All-sky surveys usually take years. This one took weeks

As of Monday, the Hellenic Land Registry website www.ktimanet.gr is to start posting cadastral data for the Municipality of Athens. Authorities are calling on more than half a million citizens who have declared ownership of properties within the municipality to check the accuracy of the data recorded ahead of its finalization.

Cadastral data for the Municipality of Athens will start being posted online as of June 1 on the Hellenic Land Registry website.

Enterprises view the continuation of teleworking, even after the lockdown restrictions come to an end, in a positive light, with the vast majority considering it an efficient measure against the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a survey conducted by human resources consultancy KPMG.

The government is planning major changes in the way that property rates used for tax purposes (known as objective values) are determined, with adjustments in the age and commerciality factors as well as the addition of 7,000 more areas into the system. The aim is to rationalize the objective value system so that objective values match the going rates.

The Finance Ministry is planning to include an additional 2,000 districts across the country in the system of taxable property rates known as objective values.

Sources say that the whole of Greece will have been included in the system by the end of the first quarter of 2020, which means a total of some 7,500 districts will be incorporated.

The Finance Ministry is expected within the month to invite chartered property surveyors to express their interest in the process of a new adjustment of property rates used for tax purposes, known as "objective values," which will go into force at the end of June.

Property surveyors will from now on undertake the adjustment of the taxable real estate rates known as objective values, according to a regulation submitted to Parliament on Thursday for ratification. This means that the extraordinary procedure employed in 2018 with the chartered surveyors will turn permanent as of 2019.