Occupied Property By Tenant or Squatter?

Occupied Property By Tenant or Squatter? By Christos ILIOPOULOS* Athens, 8 January 2022 When you own a property in Greece and someone else is occupying it, it has to be clarified under what legal regime the occupier is staying in your property and whether he has the right to do it or not. It could be that the person who occupies your property is your tenant and you, as the landlord, can verify whether the tenant is keeping his side of the deal by paying the rent and protecting your property or not, in which case you can file a lawsuit action or serve a notice to evict him. However, it could be that the occupier is not a tenant, because you and he never signed or agreed on any lease / rental agreement and that he is staying in your property or occupying it under another claim. He may argue, for instance, that he himself is the owner of the property and that he has the right to use it at his will. Alternatively, his argument could be that he has rented the property from someone else, who is the real owner or that he has permission to use the property under another legal pretext. You, on the other hand, may claim that you have your own legal titles, which are defeating the arguments the occupier is putting forward. A similar situation was resolved by the court decision No. 751/2021 of the Athens Justice of the Peace Court. The owner of a house with a plot in Athens, living in the USA started negotiating, through a representative of hers in Athens, with the neighbours who run a bar right next to her property. The lady owned the house with the plot with a clear title going back a few decades and her ownership was not disputed. The neighbours who run the bar wanted to rent part of her plot to extend their bar space and the lady who owned the neighbouring house with plot started negotiating with them from June 2020. They discussed about the monthly rent which initially was set at 600 euros, but later rose to 700 euros per month. The discussions between the two sides involved the right of the bar owners to clean the part of the plot they wanted to rent, as well as to model it for the use they wanted to do. More than a year after the start of the negotiations, the bar owners had cleaned and modelled the part of the neighbouring plot, spending a considerable amount of money. They had also paid to the owner of the plot (the lady living in the US) four monthly rents, of 720 euros each month. However, the lady from the US, as owner of the neighbouring plot, filed a petition for temporary injunction against them, claiming that they were trespassers and asking the court to order them to vacate the premises. The respondents (owners of the adjacent bar) replied in their legal brief that they were not trespassing. They argued that they were tenants, because a lease – rental agreement had been concluded between them as tenants and the lady, owner of the plot, as landlord. The rental agreement was not concluded in writing, but nonetheless it was legally valid, because a rental agreement does not necessarily have to be agreed in writing, if its main terms regarding the amount of monthly rent and the identity of the rented property are agreed verbally between the landlord and the tenant. The court heard the arguments by both sides, considered the evidence presented to it and decided that a rental agreement had indeed been struck between the two parties, even if this agreement was not in writing. From the evidence regarding the substance of their negotiations it turned out, according to the judge, that the two sides had agreed on the amount of the monthly rent and on the exact specifications of the part of the plot which was to be rented. The fact that the respondents had already paid rents covering a four - month period, of an amount of 720 euros per month, which the landlord had accepted and not rejected, was a significant indicator that the respondents were not trespassers who had illegally occupied the part of the neighbouring plot, but tenants who were exercising their rental right to use the property since they paid the monthly rent they had agreed with the landlord. Thus, the court rejected the petition for temporary injunction and ordered the petitioner to pay the legal expenses of the respondents. *Christos ILIOPOULOS, attorney at the Supreme Court of Greece , LL.M. www.greekadvocate.eu e-mail: bm-bioxoi@otenet.gr