Around 3,000 property owners in the Municipality of Spata–Artemida have received a notice regarding a retrospective Property Tax (TAP) and around 150 have already lodged an objection. The figures were provided by the municipal authorities at the 4th Special Accountability Meeting of the Municipal Council, on Thursday 29 October, where the mayor, Dimitris Markou, admitted that incorrect charges had also been sent out, mainly in town planning zones 12, 13 and 14.
What was said at the meeting
The issue was raised by local councillor Athanasios Zirogiannis. According to his account, out of approximately 14,000 property owners in the two municipal districts, 3,000 have been notified; the dispatch of new notices was halted when errors were identified, and the contract with the company that carried out the survey is worth approximately 250,000 euros. He asked to be informed who had accepted the deliverables, how much had been paid, and whether the relevant departments had checked the data before the notices were sent out, and proposed that all notices be cancelled and the process restarted from the beginning.
The mayor replied that the company had been selected through a tender process rather than by direct award, that the errors mainly concerned areas designated as public spaces and sections of properties subject to compulsory purchase, and that the company is already making the necessary corrections. The expected revenue had been estimated at around 1 million euros. It was stated that the project has not been fully handed over and the company has not been paid in full, although no figure was given for the amounts already paid; the municipal authority referred the matter to the accounts department.
Councillor Anna Raftopoulou focused on the fines: after all, as Deputy Mayor Christos Seretis said, the authorities had been unable to process the data for years, why should residents have to pay fines? Mr Seretis replied that the fines are provided for by law and that it is unfair for some property owners to pay whilst others do not. There was also disagreement over the statute of limitations – specifically, whether retrospective charges could go back five or ten years – with no common ground being reached. The local authority stated that the process would continue once the corrections had been made.
Why do I receive a notification rather than a bill for my electricity?
For properties connected to the electricity grid, the TAP is included in the electricity bill. For those declared as not connected to the electricity grid, mainly plots of land, the local council verifies this itself and sends an individual notice. This is where the usual errors seem to lie: properties that have been sold or that now have electricity and are already paying via the bill.
What should you do if you think you’ve been charged incorrectly?
The correction follows a specific procedure, as set out in the Municipal Committee’s decisions on the ‘Diafania’ transparency portal. The owner submits an application to the Department of Revenue, Property & Bequests, together with documents proving the error, such as a contract of sale or an electricity bill. The department makes a recommendation and the Municipal Committee writes off the debt, pursuant to Article 512 of the Municipal Code (Law 5314/2026), which permits write-off where the entry in the register was made ‘in a manifestly erroneous manner’ with regard to the property or the person.
Between May and August 2026 alone, the Commission adopted at least six such decisions concerning the TAP (234, 315, 398, 430, 444 and 517/2026). In the most recent decision, No. 517/2026 of 4 August, charges for a 252 m² plot in Artemida for the years 2016 to 2023 were written off because it had been sold: ranging from 3.84 to 6.41 euros per year. Anyone who has already paid an amount they did not owe may claim a refund as an ‘overpayment’, also by decision of the Commission, as was the case with Decisions 335 and 429/2026.
What remains unresolved
It has not been made public how much has been paid to the contractor, when the corrected notices will be sent out, or whether money will be refunded automatically to those who paid incorrect charges. We were unable to locate the contract for the data collection exercise via a search on Diaugia; we will follow up once it has been found.
Source: Municipality of Spata–Artemida, 4th Special Accountability Meeting of the Municipal Council, 29 October 2026 (as reported by iRafina on 31 October 2026); Municipal Committee Decisions 517/2026 and 444/2026, Diafania.
