Skip to main content

Disagreement between creditors, Greek govt over primary residence protection framework

E. Sakellari
[email protected]

Institutional creditors’ top auditors and Greek finance ministry officials continued talks in Athens this week over a successor framework for legal protection of primary residences from creditor banks and the state.

According to reports, European creditors and Greece’s systemic banks want the maximum value of a property eligible for such protection to be 100,000 euros, whereas the leftist Tsipras government wants protection for primary residences valued at up to 200,000 euros. Sources said a compromise will probably come at above 100,000 euros but significantly lower than 200,000 euros in value.

Another point of contention is the fact that creditors and domestic banks want legal protection only for primary residences vis-a-vis the mortgages connected with their purchase, whereas the government wants to expand the framework to include more private debt, such as consumer and business loans allocated with the primary residence used as collateral.

The current legal framework in Greece protecting primary residences of owners with outstanding debts expires at the end of February 2019.