Choosing an estate agent in Greece: the register to check, the eight-month cap on exclusivity, and when you may refuse to pay

Choosing an estate agent in Greece is usually described as a matter of reputation. The law makes a good part of it a matter of checking.

The short answer: brokerage is a registered profession under articles 197 to 204 of Law 4072/2012. A broker must be entered in the register of the competent chamber and in the Γ.Ε.ΜΗ., the General Commercial Registry, and acting without that registration is a criminal offence carrying six months to two years' imprisonment and a fine of €5,000 to €30,000. The brokerage contract must be in writing, and a Court of Appeal judgment of September 2026 held that where it is not, the fee cannot be recovered at all — not even as unjust enrichment. An exclusive mandate cannot exceed eight months, extendable by four. And if the broker also acts for the other side without an express clause permitting it, you may refuse to pay.

Every rule below names the article it comes from, with the date we read it.

Estate agency in Greece is a registered profession, and acting without registration is a criminal offence

Article 198(1) sets who may do this work: a Greek citizen, a citizen of an EU or EEA member state, or a third-country national holding the required residence and work permit. Added to that: no conviction for the offences the article lists, no judicial support order, and a Lyceum diploma or equivalent.

For a company, article 197(2) requires brokerage to be in its articles of association, and the conditions above to be met through at least one legal representative.

Article 198(4) is the part a buyer can use. The application goes to the competent chamber, which enters the broker in its own register and in the Γ.Ε.ΜΗ. Article 198(5) adds that the conditions must be met permanently: «Αν εκλείψει έστω και μία από τις προϋποθέσεις αυτές, ο μεσίτης διαγράφεται» — if even one of them lapses, the broker is struck off. Registration is therefore a current state, not a credential earned once.

Trainee brokers exist as a separate category, registered in their own chamber register under article 199.

The sanction is unusually hard for this kind of regulation. Article 202 makes acting as a broker without the article 198(1) conditions and without Γ.Ε.ΜΗ. registration punishable by six months to two years' imprisonment, a fine of €5,000 to €30,000, or both. Article 203(5) adds a disciplinary ladder for registered brokers: written reprimand, a fine of €2,000 to €10,000, a ban of up to a year, a combined fine and ban, or permanent loss of the right to practise.

How to check a Greek estate agent: the Γ.Ε.ΜΗ. number that must appear in your own contract

The simplest verification does not require a register search at all, because article 200(2) requires the broker's Γ.Ε.ΜΗ. number to be in the brokerage contract, alongside the parties' details and tax numbers.

So the document you are being asked to sign must itself carry the number that proves the person asking is entitled to ask. A contract without it is missing statutory content, and that absence is the answer to the question you were trying to research.

With the number in hand, the chamber that registered the broker and the Γ.Ε.ΜΗ. are where it is confirmed. We do not publish a direct register link here, because the one thing we will not do is send you to a page we have not read: ask the broker which chamber holds the registration, and check it there.

The brokerage contract in Greece must be in writing, and a 2026 appeal judgment says that without writing there is no fee at all

Article 200(1) is flat: «Η σύμβαση μεσιτείας ακινήτων καταρτίζεται εγγράφως» — the brokerage contract is concluded in writing. The article accepts exchanged signed letters, faxes or emails as satisfying the requirement, so this is a form requirement rather than a notarial one.

What the statute does not spell out is the consequence. Article 200(9) comes close: the parties to a property contract are not obliged to pay a fee to brokers who provided services without meeting the statutory requirements.

A September 2026 judgment closed the gap. In ΜονΕφΑθ 4324/2026, the Single-Member Court of Appeal of Athens held that a claim for a brokerage fee fails where the contract was never put in writing, and that unjust enrichment cannot replace it: article 200(9) «αποκλείει την εφαρμογή του άρθρου 904 ΑΚ» — it excludes the application of article 904 of the Civil Code. The court relied on Plenary Areios Pagos 1111/1981, that an improperly appointed broker has no claim either for the fee or in unjust enrichment.

The holding has a limit worth stating, because it is the kind of thing a summary flattens. Unjust enrichment remains available where a brokerage contract was annulled for a defect of consent or ended by withdrawal. What it cannot rescue is a contract void for want of writing, or one where the person was never a broker at all.

What a Greek brokerage contract must contain, item by item

Article 200(2) requires:

That last line is worth holding onto. Greek brokerage fees are freely negotiable with no statutory minimum, so any figure presented to you as the legal or standard rate is a market custom wearing a rule's clothes.

Exclusive brokerage in Greece is capped at eight months, and an ordinary mandate runs twelve

Article 200(4) permits exclusivity and then limits it. Under an exclusive mandate the client may not appoint another broker for the same mandate, nor search personally — except for persons named in the contract, which is the clause to use if you already have a buyer or a property in view.

The cap is the part Greece has and most jurisdictions do not: «Η σύμβαση αποκλειστικής μεσιτείας δεν μπορεί να έχει διάρκεια πάνω από οκτώ (8) μήνες» — an exclusive brokerage contract cannot run longer than eight months, extendable by four on written notice.

For an ordinary, non-exclusive contract, article 200(3) sets a default of twelve months, extendable by six.

An exclusive mandate offered to you for a year is therefore not aggressive terms; it is longer than the statute allows.

When the fee becomes due in Greece

Article 200(5) gives the broker the right to claim the agreed fee when the main contract is concluded, provided the broker mediated or pointed out the opportunity. Where several brokers were involved, the article's rules on sharing and allocation apply.

So, as in most places, the trigger is the deal rather than the introduction — and the words "mediated or indicated the opportunity" are what a broker will rely on if you met the seller through them and completed without them.

If your Greek agent also works for the other side, you may refuse to pay

Article 200(7) is the provision worth knowing before you sign anything: if the broker also acts for the other party without an express clause allowing it, the client may refuse to pay the fee.

Dual agency is not forbidden. It is conditioned on being written down. An agent who is working both ends of a transaction and has not said so in the contract has, by statute, given you a reason not to pay.

Read together with article 200(2), that makes the contract the centre of the relationship rather than a formality to be dealt with later: it carries the registration number, the fee, the exclusivity term and the disclosure that decides whether the fee is owed at all.

A buyer from outside the EU needs a Greek agent who can handle the border-area consent

This is the question to ask an agent that has nothing to do with their marketing.

In the areas Greek law designates as border areas — including Thira (Santorini), the whole Dodecanese, Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Skyros and the northern border prefectures — a buyer with nationality or seat outside the EU and EFTA cannot acquire any right over property until a committee at the Decentralised Administration lifts the prohibition, and the Ministry of National Defence's representative must vote in favour. A deed signed without that consent is void.

An agent selling on Santorini or Rhodes to third-country buyers should be able to tell you, without looking it up, which committee has the file, what the 2024 document list requires, and that the decision carries no statutory deadline. If that is new information to them, it is the most useful thing you will learn in the meeting.

The whole procedure, and what we could not establish about a 2026 tightening of it, is in our page on buying a Greek island.

What this page does not tell you

It does not name agencies or rank them.

It does not state a commission percentage. Article 200(2) requires the fee to be in the contract and sets no minimum, so there is no legal rate to publish; what circulates as the usual figure is custom, and custom is not what this site publishes as fact.

It does not cover what the purchase itself costs. Transfer tax at 3.09% of the assessed value, and the first-home relief a non-resident cannot use, are in our page on Greek transfer tax.

Frequently asked questions about estate agents in Greece

More on buying and living in Greece

What a non-EU buyer needs before a purchase in a border area, and the separate rule for private islands, is in buying a Greek island. What the purchase costs in tax is in Greek transfer tax. The investor permit and its zones are in the Greek residence guide. The law and the judgment named here, with the date we read them, are on the sources page: the brokerage regime at Law 4072/2012 and the 2026 appeal judgment at ΜονΕφΑθ 4324/2026.