“Yperaxia” is a magic word in the Greek tax system. I do not even try to translate the term, but I will try to explain the “yperaxia”-tax imposed on property sellers, because I was asked to do so by some Greeks living abroad. Greeks who understand the law as less as the Greeks in Greece do.
Roughly said, “Yperaxia” is used to mark the price difference between the price the seller bought the property and the price he is selling the property. Yperaxia is been calculated by the tax office based on ‘objective values’.
The Yperaxia-Tax has been imposed as of 1.1.2014.
– the tax the property-buyer has to pay for the purchase of a property was decreased to 3% (from 8-10%) of the objective value up to 20,000 euro. Amounts more than 20K still subject to 10% tax.
– yperaxia-tax of 15% was imposed to the property-seller. The 15% tax refers to the difference between the seller bought his property and the price the seller sells his property (difference between the purchase price paid by the taxpayer and the selling price payable to him).
-selling price is the amount stated in the contract as the price of transfer.
if the property-seller was not involved in another property transaction during the last 5 years, and the “yperaxia” is up to 25,000 euro, no yperaxia-tax will have to be paid.
According to latest information, the Greek Finance Ministry is about to issue a circular according to which the price for buying and the price of selling will be the objective value.
This is expected to burden with heavy taxes property owners (and future sellers) who obtained their properties before the year 2000, where the objective values were low.
In the fourth year of the economic crisis with the real estate market to have collapse, the real commercial values are estimated to be up to 60% lower than the objective values.
When it comes to objective values, the Greek Finance Ministry calculates them according to objective values of 2007, that is before the crisis broke out.
Example:
A property owner bought an apartment in 1975, where there were no ‘objective values’.
Today’s objective value could be 100,000 euro. Today’s commercial price could be 60,000 but in real life a seller would not be able to receive more than 40,000 euro for such an old property.
The 15% yperaxia-tax will be imposed for 60,000 euro which is the difference between the objective value of 100,000 euro and the selling price of 40,000 euro.
What??? 9,000 euro yperaxia-tax? They must be insane….
As I never bought or sold any property I suppose additional income tax is being imposed on the seller for receiving the money.
Nothing is been said for property obtained from inheritance or antiparochi (fair exchange) but maybe the tax office will calculate the objective value of the time the seller received the property. Further check with tax advisers and notaries….
In Wikipedia, yperaxia is being translated with “good will” (accounting) = Goodwill arises when one company acquires another, but pays more than the fair market value of the net assets (total assets – total liabilities).
good luck! 🙂
How can i and my sister sell out house in Greece. I do not speek it or understand it. My father left it too us. it is in our names. would like to sell it! Is a big house and on the water. Any help would be great!!! He told me trusting people over there is not good they will rip you off. thanks. Thank You Have a great day.
Ι really have no idea, James, you better get in contact with some respected real estate agency.
It’s called Capital gain…
thank you!
One more reason never to buy anything in Greece for investment. If you want to buy a summer home and plan to keep it forever, then a small cottage on a Greek island is great. But, certainly buying property in Greece to make any kind of profit is stupid.