Greece's Ministry of Health has launched a major initiative to digitally map, register, and manage thousands of uncatalogued real estate properties of unknown total value located across Greece and abroad.
Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis announced that a tender process lasting two and a half years has culminated in awarding the comprehensive audit contract to Qualco Real Estate.
Speaking about the project, Georgiadis emphasized that the primary objective is not to sell off state assets. Instead, the government intends to commercialize the portfolio through long-term leases and strategic management proposals prepared by advisory experts and ministry officials.
The vast asset collection has accumulated over several decades, primarily through testamentary gifts and bequests left to the Greek state by hospital patients. Because no systematic record-keeping existed in the past, neither Georgiadis nor previous health ministers have known the exact number of properties, their true market value, or the potential rental income they could generate.
A pier in America and prime retail sites
Georgiadis revealed that the portfolio includes a wide variety of assets, from prime retail storefronts on Ermou Street in Athens to residential apartment buildings surrounding the United States Embassy.
Ermou Street is the main pedestrian shopping thoroughfare in central Athens, connecting Syntagma Square to Monastiraki, and commands some of the highest commercial rents in Greece. The United States Embassy occupies a prominent complex on nearby Vasilissis Sofias Avenue, an avenue lined with upscale residential structures and commercial offices.
In one extreme case cited by the minister, a patient bequeathed a pier located in a United States port to the Greek Ministry of Health. Georgiadis acknowledged that the ministry currently has no knowledge of who manages the port facility or what its current status is.
Government estimates suggest the mapping, legal verification, and regularisation process will take two to three years to complete. The audit is expected to cover between 4,000 and 5,000 individual properties worth millions of euros, with Georgiadis pointing out that the Greek state is forfeiting substantial revenues by leaving the assets unexploited.
A complex legal and technical undertaking
Orestis Tsakalotos, chief executive of Qualco Real Estate, stated that the total cost of cataloguing, regularising, and planning the commercial exploitation of the portfolio is estimated at at least 10 million euros.
Qualco Real Estate is a Greek property services firm specializing in large-scale asset mapping and portfolio management. Tsakalotos noted that registering the ministry's properties will be a particularly complex task, as decades-old bequests require extensive technical inspections and intricate legal procedures before titles can be cleared for commercial use. However, he expressed confidence in the outcome, citing the company's extensive experience with complex asset identification operations.
Although Qualco Real Estate will assist the project in an advisory role, all management authority and final decisions regarding property use will remain strictly with the Ministry of Health. Georgiadis added that creating a permanent digital asset registry will ensure future health ministers have full oversight of the state's holdings, enabling them to utilize the property for the benefit of Greek citizens.
