BUILDING A HOUSE THE GREEK WAY - PART 1
BUYING THE LAND, DESIGNING YOUR HOME AND OBTAINING PLANNING PERMISSION
The options for
acquiring a property
There are three ways to acquire a property on Paxos: buy an existing
villa or property that has already been renovated/restored; buy a
property for renovation/restoration; or buy a plot of land and build
a new house.
Buying an existing villa or property that has already been
renovated/restored does of course mean that you will be able to move
in fairly quickly but, as these are in short supply, it also means
that prices tend to be very high. The cost of buying a property and
renovating/restoring it may be lower than that of building a new
house but you will not have the same degree of flexibility and there
can also be problems with obtaining planning permission. Buying a
plot of land and building a new house means that, when it is finally
completed, you will have your dream home, tailor-made to your own
design and with all modern facilities. However, although it is
possible to build a typical house on Paxos in 8-10 months, there are
a number of factors that can result in it actually taking much
longer and you therefore need to be prepared to allow up to two
years from the time you complete the purchase of the land to being
able to move into your house.
So, although my preferred option would be to see people buying older
properties for renovation/restoration, because of the potential
difficulties and high cost of this, I often recommend buying a plot
of land and building a new house, provided that people are prepared
to wait the length of time that this involves. This is certainly the
advice I usually give to Paxos Property Agency clients who are
looking for maximum equity or interested in renting out their
property, in which case quality and location are so important. And
this is exactly what my wife and I decided to do eighteen months
ago, having looked around the island at what was available and the
associated costs.
Finding a plot of land
There is a fair amount of land available on the island of Paxos.
However, the price is rising quite quickly and in some popular
areas, such as in and around the village of Loggos, land is already
in short supply.
We finally bought our plot of land just above Loggos at the end of
November 2005. It’s located in a spot from where I had always
admired the view and so we took the plunge and went for it. It
didn’t have any deeds and wasn’t then classed as being ‘in the
village’, but we loved the location so much that we decided to go
ahead. It has since been confirmed as being ‘in the village’ and
this is important, as the maximum area on which you are permitted to
build is determined by the size of the plot and whether it is
considered to be in or outside a village area.
Designing your home and obtaining planning permission
Just as there are three possible options for acquiring a property,
there are also three options for designing your home: draw up your
own detailed plans and then appoint an engineer to advise on the
feasibility of building according to your plans and obtaining
planning permission; draw up rough plans – rooms and rough sizes or
usage – and then engage either an engineer or architect to draw up
detailed plans; or engage an engineer or architect to do the design
in its entirety.
We chose the first option and I drew up fairly detailed plans for
our house before appointing a local engineer to advise on the
feasibility of building according to my plans and apply for planning
permission on our behalf. I took my time over drawing up the plans,
as I wanted to make sure that I had included all the rooms we wanted
to the right dimensions and that I was making the most of outside
areas and views at different times of the day and at different times
of the year.
Your architect or engineer will advise you as to whether there are
likely to be any problems with gaining planning permission and will
monitor progress on your application until permission is granted.
You can expect to be granted permission in three months, provided
your proposed house doesn’t exceed the maximum permitted area and
provided you don’t want to build something that cannot be classed as
authentic to Paxos. Our engineer applied for planning permission on
our behalf in October 2006 and we received this in January 2007.
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