March 2025

Decision of the Athens Single-Member Court of First Instance on the Annulment of an Eauction Due to Failure to Serve an Extract of the Seizure Report

The Athens Single-Member Court of First Instance recently issued Decision No. 697/2025, which upheld our client's opposition (ανακοπή), annulling the Auction Report, the Final Award Report, and the order for the delivery of the property.

In this case, a compulsory enforcement procedure led to the auction of our client’s property without the proper pre-auction procedure being followed. Specifically, the legally required service of the extract of the seizure report (as per Article 995(4) of the Greek Code of Civil Procedure) to a preferential creditor had not taken place, rendering the auction null and void.

The Court of Opposition ruled for the first time on a case where, prior to the initiation of enforcement proceedings, the underlying claim had been assigned to a special-purpose vehicle (SPV), which thus became the new preferential creditor. However, the extract of the seizure report was never served on this entity. Furthermore, in this instance, the change of creditor had not been registered in the Mortgage Registry or recorded in the cadastral records of the Land Registry Office.

Specifically, the decision included the following key findings:

"...Therefore, at the time of the seizure of the above-mentioned apartment – horizontal property, which took place on 9-1-2023, and until the expiration of the 15-day period thereafter, the secured creditor of the claim had become the special-purpose vehicle under the name 'PILLAR FINANCE DAC'. However, despite the fact that the special successor of the claim did not proceed with recording this change of creditor in the cadastral records of the Athens Land Registry Office by registering the summary with protocol number 146/18-6-2019, which had been recorded in Volume 10 and No. 180 of the public books maintained under Article 3 of Law 2844/2000 at the Athens Pledge Registry, this omission may establish an obligation for compensation of the assignor or the preferential creditor to any party that suffered damages. However, it does not affect the validity of the assignment or the accessory transfer of the preferential mortgage securing the claim (Article 1312 of the Greek Civil Code), since the recording of such a change does not constitute a formal notification, which in this case had already occurred through the registration of the aforementioned summary of the business claims transfer agreement in the public books of the Athens Pledge Registry, which was accessible to the first respondent in the opposition. Therefore, the failure to serve the extract of the seizure report to the foreign SPV ‘PILLAR FINANCE DAC’, as the preferential creditor, resulted in the nullity of the auction of the G-1 apartment – horizontal property, which was conducted electronically on 20-9-2022, and consequently, in the annulment of the enforcement order dated 12-12-2024 for the delivery of the property, along with the first enforceable copy of the summary of the final award report of the property."

This decision underscores the critical importance of correctly following all procedural requirements in compulsory enforcement, particularly regarding the service of key documents to all relevant creditors.