Real Estate

Our Real Estate practice is one of the top teams in Athens for advising on the acquisition, development and financing of property-related assets.

Our team provides specialist advice to a wide range of Greek and international clients, including many of the major REICs active in the Greek market, on all matters involving real estate, including compliance with local legislation, and planning and zoning regulations.

Our Real Estate team has worked with buyers or sellers in many of the most-significant transactions in the Greek market over the last few years. We have advised banks on the sale of assets held since the financial crash; on hotel and resort acquisitions and sales valued in the hundreds of millions of Euros involving overseas investors; on large-scale projects that involve complicated urban planning including infrastructure projects (road, port and airport), railways, wind farms, waste management projects, and; on the real estate elements of a number of NPL portfolios.

Working with our colleagues across the firm, we also have extensive experience in real estate finance, both in relation to the regulatory framework governing REIC’s and the financing of hospitality development, repositioning and refurbishing projects.

With property transactions in Greece following a notarial process and requiring notarial deeds, having two notaries within our team means that we are very well positioned to deliver an efficient, end-to-end real estate service to our clients, with compliance hard-wired from the beginning.

Alongside major domestic and international corporate clients, our client base includes real estate funds, private investors and construction companies.

Hospitality

Whether for a lender, developer, investor, owner or occupier, our hospitality team combines industry knowledge, technical expertise and commercial thinking to help our clients get the best out of their business and investments.

With extensive experience in the Hospitality sector, we can advise you with:

• management contracts, operating leases and franchising
• acquisitions and disposals
• restructurings
• financing
• joint ventures
• sale and lease-backs/manage-backs
• fractional ownership
• development and construction
• planning and environment
• litigation and disputes
• intellectual property
• tax
• employment

Litigation

Our Real Estate Litigation team offers clients practical and innovative dispute avoidance and expert representation in the full range of property disputes in all levels of Greek courts and arbitrations.

Our experienced Real Estate Litigation team focuses on complex and high-value property litigation and advisory work for a diverse range of clients, including high-net-worth individuals, landlords and tenants, developers, REICs, financial institutions, hoteliers, retailers, manufacturers and insolvency practitioners.

With deep knowledge of the dynamics of Greek property market as well as acute technical expertise, we help clients to manage risk, identify and address emerging issues early, and, when disputes arise, to develop practical solutions and act decisively. Our expert advice during the negotiating and documenting of transactions helps clients to avoid or minimize the disruption and cost of any subsequent disputes.

We act for clients in property litigation in all court levels and in arbitrations and mediations.

Private Equity & Investment

Our Real Estate team is experienced in the legal issues and commercial challenges involved in dealing with private equity structures, joint ventures, limited partnerships, REICs and other co-investment arrangements.

Our Real Estate lawyers are experienced in advising on the full life-cycle of corporate real estate structures, from the initial choice of structure, tax optimization, creation of the vehicle, funding, the acquisition and asset or project management through to exit strategy.

Whether the underlying real estate transaction is an income-producing investment, a portfolio acquisition, a mortgage portfolio transaction, a workout, a development project, a sale and leaseback or a trading transaction, we help our clients to identify and implement the most appropriate deal structure – taking into account local market and currency issues, transfer tax, accounting treatment and risk allocation.

REICs

We have extensive experience in advising REICs, financial institutions and investment banks in all aspects of their activities in the Greek real estate market.

Our Real Estate team works with REICs and institutional investors, advising on structuring and financing issues, strategic corporate transactions and portfolio transactions ranging from office and commercial properties in Athens to hotel and leisure assets. Our deep knowledge of the dynamics of the real estate market and our understanding of the commercial drivers of these market participants enable us to provide comprehensive advisory and transactional support and proactive advice where required.

Our team of experts advises on:

• REIC formation
• registration
• secondary securities offerings
• mergers and acquisitions
• strategic investments in real estate corporations
• portfolio transactions
• day-to-day operations
• debt financings
• private equity
• tax