The first AI system for telephone service in the Public Sector is set to be operational by early 2026 at the Hellenic Land Registry. This is a system that will interoperate with public databases and provide personalized service to citizens and professionals after identification.

The digital voicemail (a continuation of the chat mAlgov) will be able to respond directly to queries, record requests that require further processing and automatically generate digital service tickets on behalf of the citizen. Reportedly, the tests carried out so far show a high degree of reliability and performance of the system. Its activation will put an end to unanswered phones or the need for physical presence at land registry offices, leading to both the decongestion of the institution and improved service.

As “THEMA” the president of the Land Registry, Stelios Sakaretsios, tells “Thema”, “the digital answering machine with AI is not just another innovation, it is the end of waiting and the beginning of a new era of service. With the ability to interface with government databases and operate in real time, we are creating a system that understands the citizen’s request, classifies and manages it without delays, without physical presence, without wasting time. We want the Land Registry to become a model of service and efficiency. With the power of AI, we are moving from the era of closed phones to the era of smart answers.”

Modernisation Strategy

The digital answering machine is part of a broader modernization strategy of the Hellenic Cadastre with a digital focus that includes a multitude of applications, such as the metavoles.ktimatologio.gr platform for spatial changes and correction of land parcel boundaries due to errors, the interactive cadastral map maps.ktimatologio.gr, the digital real estate transfer file through which 1,838 transactions were completed in just one working day and which was put into full production yesterday, Friday, and now, apart from transactions, also supports new transactions, such as parental transfers, inheritance payments and donations.

In addition, the institution is the first to leverage AI for legal contract review. Thus, instead of employees reading hundreds of pages, today the algorithm now does it for them, confirming the validity or otherwise of the transaction with great accuracy. It is worth noting that since last September, when the system was activated, 118,000 decisions have been issued with the support of AI, saving a huge amount of staff time.

As Sakaretsios explains, “before the system was implemented, a full legal audit required up to two man-hours per contract. With AI, the same process is completed in less than ten minutes with comparable – and in many cases superior – levels of accuracy. The benefit is twofold: it frees up critical manpower and speeds up workflows across the entire spectrum of administrative processing.”

Another important reform to be implemented by the Hellenic Cadastre is the Unified Real Estate Registry which will link all the databases of the state and private entities containing real estate data into a single application. It is a platform that integrates all the data of real estate, such as their profile, the integration of data from all databases (Land Registry, E9, PPC, Urban Planning, insurance), with direct access to citizens and institutions, simplification and security in transfers, etc.

The Ministry of Digital Governance is currently drafting the relevant bill that will set the framework for the operation of the new platform and is expected to be presented to the Council of Ministers in June.

When will it end

The decisive leap in the digital transformation of the Land Registry is in line with the completion trajectory the project is on after nearly three decades of hassle and delays. According to a recent presentation made by the administration to the prime minister, by the end of the year all properties in the country will have a National Cadastre Code Number (NCRN), with the aim of finally integrating them into a single, fully digitised registration system.

The work of cadastral registration has already reached 65% of the territory from 36% in July 2023, with the estimate that by the end of the year most of the country will be completed to reach 92% by the end of the year. The main reason why it may not reach 100% and the timetable may be pushed back to the fourth month of 2026 is the delays recorded in the latest cadastral studies concerning the areas of Corfu, Thesprotia, Crete and the North Aegean, which were the last to be commissioned due to appeals from contractors.

The project operator is in the process of discussions with the designers, who are seeking financial compensation in order to amend the contracts of the projects. If the pace does not accelerate as much as it should, there will be a partial extension of the project completion in order to avoid the Hellenic Cadastre being asked to bear additional financial burdens from the modification of the contracts.

Thousands of outstanding issues

After the 350,000 pending issues of the Mortgage Offices, the completion of the land registration will bring to the Land Registry an additional giant volume of pending issues, estimated at 400,000. The aim of the political leadership and the administration of the Hellenic Cadastre is to zero all the pending issues of the Land Registry by the end of the year and the increased productivity will lead to a rapid clearance of the pending issues arising from the cadastral registration, as they will enter the system gradually, in waves.

These are mainly cases related to errors in topographic data, undeclared properties and registrations made with incomplete or incorrect data.

Today, 92% of transactions at the Land Registry are carried out digitally, which is a major breakthrough for the project considering the third-world images of queues and handwritten priority papers that characterized its operation in the past. This development is credited to the current administration and is an encouraging sign of the digital transformation that is being achieved.

Redrawing boundaries in problem areas

One of the major priorities and challenges for the Land Registry at this time is to clear outstanding issues without requiring recourse to lengthy and costly legal proceedings. This includes the redefinition of boundaries for 29,525 land parcels across the country, as the first cadastral studies found serious failures in terms of boundaries.

According to competent sources, previous attempts to solve the problem did not yield results as there was no institutional framework that allowed for correction without the consent of neighbouring owners and without cost for performance through bailiffs.

The State, recognizing the mistakes of the past, is working on a legislative provision to be included in the bill for the Unified Real Estate Registry, which will proceed with editing and corrections to the map by making the new data public. Affected owners will have two months to express their objections in a new digital tool (it will have the characteristics of an independent platform that will be different per region) and will not require the intervention of a bailiff, which means no cost to the citizen.

The Land Registry will consider objections, but will not be bound by them to correct errors. This means that it will be able to correct errors made administratively without recourse to the courts. Such areas with failures and errors are Lefkada, Chios and Lesvos, where the boundaries will need to be redefined in the operating Cadastre.

Download files

The shift towards technology is also reflected in the digitisation of the physical records of the Land Registry offices. So far, over 384 million pages have been digitized, representing about 62% of the total project. At the same time, 222,907,164 pages have been omitted from the Hellenic Land Registry, representing 37.2% of the project (against a target of 30%), which are the records that have been fully audited and certified by auditors and count towards the Recovery Fund milestones. The RRF is funding €237 million to digitize 600 million pages.

Despite the significant progress being recorded at all levels for the Land Registry, however, there are no shortage of problems. Its administration is often confronted with internal malfunctions, such as a lack of technical competence, the resistance of some officials to the digital transition, and the inability to attract qualified staff due to the restrictive institutional framework and low salaries.

At the same time, there is no lack of abusive behavior with employees who take advantage of the chronological omissions of land registration and demand money from citizens for faster processing of cases, with relevant incidents recorded very recently taking the way of justice.

Digital Ombudsman at the land registry offices

In addition, an international tender for the selection of a contractor, who will undertake the staffing of the offices of the Hellenic Cadastre with specialized personnel and the necessary technical equipment, is being launched immediately with funds of 4 million euros from the ESPA.

This action is part of the overall strategy for the complete digitization of the Land Registry, which, although it rapidly increases the speed and efficiency of procedures, creates the need to support citizens who are not familiar with digital tools.

In this context, it is planned to institutionalize the role of the Digital Co-Preservationist, a natural person who will be located inside the shops and will provide on-site assistance and guidance to citizens and professionals when using the digital services of the Cadastre.

The duration of the project is 48 months and aims to ensure digital inclusion so that no citizen is left behind in the transition to the new era.

Automatic transcription

The Land Registry is close to an agreement with notaries to implement a fully digital structured summary with automatic data extraction from government databases. This will reduce errors and significantly speed up legal control.

It will include predefined fields (CIC, details of the parties, price, property description, etc.), thus allowing through an algorithm, if all the data agree with the official registers, the transaction to be automatically approved and the certificate to be issued in a few minutes.