According to decision no. 296/2018 of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Heraklion, the counterclaimants have no claim against the seller of the horizontal property due to the failure to legalize its urban planning violations, since at the time they purchased it, Law 4014/2011 had neither been enacted nor was in force, and therefore the sellers could not have assumed an obligation that did not exist.
Regarding the reduced area of the sold property, the decision accepted that no claim arises in favor of the buyers because they aimed to purchase it as a single unit regardless of its exact size. This assumption reflects the correct interpretation of Article 550 of the Greek Civil Code, which provides that if the seller of a property has assured the buyer that the property has a certain area, the seller is liable as for an agreed characteristic. Therefore, a reduced area of the property compared to that assured by the seller does not constitute a legal defect but rather the absence of an agreed characteristic (Court of Appeal of Athens 1032/2003, EllDni 2004, 220).
In any case, the buyer must prove that the seller knew that the larger property had a smaller area and that the mention of the property’s size in the purchase contract was made specifically to mislead and harm the buyer, in order to make him pay a higher price. This is not the case when, on one hand, the price was set as a lump sum without any indication of value per square meter, and on the other hand, the description of the area in the contested contract merely repeats that in the aforementioned title deeds.
