Posts Tagged ‘greek systems’

Interesting business

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

I wonder what a UK trained accountant would make of the Greek way of doing business. Especially one who was auditing the accounts of our local post office.

The man who runs the post office doesn’t seem to like giving change and tries to avoid it whenever he can. On a recent visit I wanted to buy 2 stamps costing €1.40 in total, and offered a €5 note. He asked if I had change, which I didn’t. So rather than give me €3.60 change he gave me the stamps for free. And this isn’t the first time it’s happened, nor are we the only ones it happens to. Occasionally he will tell me to pay next time, but not always.

This is a post office, it’s supposed to have money – and it does. People pay all sorts of bills here, and obviously buy stamps and pay for other postage. This man has a till full of change. There’s no excuse for his actions. I didn’t give him a €50 note; I offered just a small amount of money over the cost of my purchase. If I’d offered a €2 coin he would have given me change: he can manage to part with a few cents but not his euros.

I’m assuming someone, somewhere expects our post office to produce accounts, which are surely supposed to balance. How can this happen if our postmaster keeps giving away stamps for free?

When we bought our land there were various payments included in the costs. The lady in the local notary’s office who produced the paperwork, for example, was given something like €50. I’m sure she gets paid as an employee, but if she picks up this type of ‘tip’ for every case she works on she probably makes a fair amount on top of her salary.

And of course there were the ‘usual’ payments to people in the official departments, to make sure the paperwork was moving along speedily.

A friend was telling me the other day that some tavernas only produce paper receipts when they know there’s a tax inspector in the area. At other times it’s all verbal so there’s no way of knowing whether all the money received from customers went into the till.

Years ago Ken ran a carpet and upholstery cleaning business in the UK, and some of his customers paid in cash. The tax inspectors went through his books carefully to make sure he accounted for every penny he received, checking payments against his appointments. If they thought he wasn’t declaring all his cash receipts they could estimate them, based on those he had declared, and charge tax on the notional amount. And, other than asking people not to pay in cash, there was no way he could prove that he had accounted for all the cash he received.

There’s a lot of publicity about corruption in high places at present: UK politicians’ expense claims, free holidays for businessmen and so on. Here in Greece corruption at the highest levels of government and business also gets noticed. But this is a country that still has many practices that encourage people to under declare their income, personal or business. It seems that as long as things are kept at a reasonable level, and no-one gets too greedy, this will continue to be accepted.

If even part of that unpaid tax was recovered maybe there would be more progress on projects that are urgently needed, such as a local hospital or a completed motorway, or more firefighting resources. But this is probably naive of me, given the stories I’ve also heard about public money being spent on the pet projects of local politicians rather than the things that are most needed.

And even the greedy are catered for:

I’ve heard of a developer who was taken to court for taking a client’s money but failing to deliver the services agreed. A guilty verdict resulted in a prison sentence, and I believe the guilty party actually went to prison – but not for long. He was able to return the client’s money and get out of prison after just a few weeks, presumably pay a fine?

Not much incentive there to keep to the straight and narrow then?

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So where’s the hurry?

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Somewhere to sit while waiting for 'methavrio' to arrive

Somewhere to sit while waiting for 'methavrio' to arrive

This week, next week, whenever…

The Greek equivalent of mañana is methavrio which technically means the day after tomorrow, but in practice means some time in the future. We often encounter it. To put it bluntly, we just never know when something will actually happen: expectations and reality can be very far apart. Here’s an example.

When we first moved to this apartment last November, our landlady told us she was planning to get an internet connection in her office, which would give us the opportunity to ditch our current, relatively expensive, wireless and use her broadband. Great! We thought, but fortunately didn’t rush out and cancel that contract.

Over the following months the subject mostly went quiet, but every few weeks she would tell us that the broadband was coming – this week or next week usually being the timeframe. In July we got neighbours: a Dutch couple staying in the studio opposite for 2 months, who’d been trying to get internet access down in one of the local cafes, but without their own laptop it was difficult. Again I heard the statement ‘I will be getting broadband here next week’, and hoped their need wasn’t urgent.

Then two weeks ago we were told it was definitely ‘next’ (i.e. last) week. And about three days ago the much awaited broadband finally arrived.

I don’t think our landlady is entirely at fault for raising our expectations as she was in the hands of other people, who presumably kept giving her dates that they failed to keep. What I find interesting is the fact that it never seemed to bother her to keep telling us that broadband would be here ‘next week’. Faced with so many failed deliveries I would have been too embarrassed to even raise the subject until the thing was installed and performing.

Maybe here they’re so used to things not happening when planned that they’re comfortable with these non-appearances, but I know that if I’d made any plans based on the early promises I would have been very disappointed.

And that broadband for us? So far we can access it on one of our two machines – for some reason her network can only accommodate two machines and one of those is obviously the office one. We’re trying to pick up a wireless signal through concrete walls so it isn’t always that good, and our PC has a much more difficult time picking it up than our laptop. As we want both machines to have internet access at the same time (we’ve tried juggling one machine, it just doesn’t work for us) we don’t yet have an acceptable solution.

So we’re not abandoning our trusty wireless connection yet despite the shiny new box sitting in the office. The attraction of faster broadband is definitely there, but we know we won’t have access to this when we finally move so we’ll need our wireless connection long-term. But maybe adding up the costs of installing phone lines and getting a new broadband connection is a good idea as we could be here for some time yet…

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Medical Experiences

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Don’t believe everything you hear about inferior health facilities outside the UK

Ken has spent several hours sitting in the dentist’s chair over the last few days, which seems a good opportunity to comment on our Greek dental experiences, compared to our previous UK ones.

There’s just one dental practice in Koroni, an unassuming surgery above a restaurant. Giannis (John) is a very friendly dentist with pretty good English. He works alone. He did have an assistant/receptionist last year but she doesn’t seem to be around any more. We’ve heard she now works in a local supermarket. Seems dental support services aren’t seen as an actual career in Greece.

Not like the UK, where the number of non-dentists in a practice would significantly outnumber the actual dentists. Receptionists, hygienists and dental surgery assistants almost tripping over each other, all of whom had to be utilized in delivering your treatment. Your appointment could only be arranged by the receptionist; you were expected to submit to the ministrations of a hygienist (this has to be high on my list of worst experiences ever); the dentist seemed incapable of operating without an assistant to deal with all the little things. And, of course, the cost of your treatment had to contribute to all their salaries.

Fixed appointments aren’t the norm with our Greek dentist. You can just drop in, and as long as you don’t mind waiting, you’ll get seen. If you need a lengthy appointment (such as for bridges or crowns) you go as soon as he’s open. But he doesn’t turn people away if they’re in the waiting room. Nor does he charge anyone an emergency fee. And however many people he has waiting, he never gives the impression of being harassed, or makes you feel you’re being rushed.

By comparison, getting to see a dentist without an appointment, even in an emergency, was a challenge in the UK. We had one dentist who insisted on fixed appointments (and charged you if you had the temerity to miss them) but who never felt the need to honor his side of the commitment. I’ve arrived early morning, believing mine was the first appointment of the day (having specifically requested this, and seen it booked into the diary), only to find at least half a dozen people ahead of me, and suffered an hour’s wait, with no explanation or apology. I’ve even seen my dentist meet with a salesman while I was waiting for my overdue appointment.

Almost as soon as they could, our UK dentist had us signing forms agreeing to pay for whatever treatment was needed. In some cases we had to pay on every visit, even though treatment wasn’t completed. There was definitely no possibility of getting out of the door without paying. In Greece things are much more relaxed. We’ve had check-ups, even fillings, and not been asked to pay until later. ‘Leave it a few days and see if it’s alright’, John will say when asked about payment. We could just disappear without paying, but there is that layer of trust running through the Greek psyche which means we won’t.

Facilities in Greece seem, on the surface, to be less sophisticated than in the UK. The surgery is basic, the waiting room just a few seats and a television. There are no posters or leaflets, no advertisements for the latest techniques, no frills in fact. But this is a false impression. The surgery has all the equipment and facilities we would expect, and if there’s anything they can’t do locally they can quickly and easily access specialist facilities in Kalamata. No waiting weeks for an appointment.

Greek dentists use A4 size x-rays where you can really see what’s happening inside the tooth, not those match-box sized pictures we’re used to from the UK. And the dentist takes time to really explain and discuss the treatment he’s suggesting. He makes sure you fully understand the implications of the treatment, what it will involve, and what it will cost. He doesn’t hassle or try to push you into something. He presents the information, gives you the time you need to make decisions, and accepts what you decide.

My non-NHS UK dentist almost denied me access to his surgery when I declined their decidedly unpleasant hygienist services, and made me feel like a second-class citizen when I was unsure about going ahead with lengthy, expensive treatment that wasn’t going to achieve anything other than a cosmetic improvement to teeth that couldn’t even be seen.

In fact, our experience with Greek dental services has been far superior to most of our encounters in the UK. Interestingly, our best experience of service in the UK was with an NHS dental practice, which we were fortunate to be able to join in our last couple of years there. A service that was staffed by dentists from Eastern Europe…

Surely you don't want a picture of teeth?

Surely you don't want a picture of teeth?

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Holy Ghosts and Bureaucrats

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

We’ve finally become the owners of a little piece of mainland Greece.

Some day soon this will be the view from our terrace

Some day soon this will be the view from our terrace

It was months ago when we first viewed the plot of land we hoped to buy. Early disappointment ensued when the seller took it off the market for reasons to do with EU grants, retirement and farmers’ entitlements, which we never really got to the bottom of.

So a few months later when it came back on sale we didn’t get our hopes up. We paid our deposit and waited for the bureaucracy to take its course: surveys, checks, legal searches etc., with the knowledge that things could go wrong at any stage, or the seller could pull out again. We greeted progress updates calmly, knowing that in Greece, plans don’t always come to fruition at the time, or in the way, expected.

In early May we were told things should be completed ‘in a couple of weeks’, which we translated to a more realistic time frame of the end of May. At the beginning of June we made a first payment towards land taxes and legal fees, and were told everything should be completed on Friday 4th. Then early on Friday morning we heard there could be a delay until the middle of next week.

Why? Firstly, the European elections being held this weekend meant the Notary might not be available for other duties; and secondly it is Pentecost (Holy Ghost Day) on Monday, thus a public holiday.

So we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in the Notary’s office at noon on Friday having documents read out to us by a translator, and signing paper after paper that sealed the deal.

All in all a painless process, and an interesting one.

Land sold in Greece has its value assessed by the relevant government department. Value is based on factors such as whether a site has access to services such as electricity, water and sewage; how close it is to a town or village; and how close it is to the sea,  and doesn’t necessarily bear any relationship to the price being paid for the land.

Our plot lacks water and electricity, is exactly 1km from the village boundary, and several km from the sea, although with excellent views both across to the mountains of the Mani and out into the Aegean. We’re probably no more than 10 minutes from a sandy beach. Takingall these factors into account, the valuation is significantly lower than the price we’re paying.

Our agent has recently sold a piece of land which, because it’s in quite a remote area without electricity, water or decent roads, was very competitively priced. However the valuation department thought otherwise. The plot is close to the sea – not to a beach or an accessible area of coast, but to rugged cliffs. Unfortunately this type of subtlety isn’t taken into account in land valuations: close to the sea means close to the sea, and that is a factor that increases the valuation. In this case, the official valuation is twice what the land cost.

A curious system applies whereby it is up to the buyer to decide what to officially declare as the price they paid for their land. Anything between the official valuation and the actual price paid can be declared. The usual guidance is to declare a price a little above the valuation, but below the actual purchase price. It’s a swings and roundabouts situation: land taxes are calculated based on the declared price, so the lower we go, the less tax we pay. But if there turns out to be a problem with the land, we can only get our money back up to the amount we have declared.

So the choice is between paying more taxes with a guarantee of getting all your money back if things go wrong, and trusting that the lawyers have done their job properly, the seller’s legal declarations (free from mortgage, right to sell etc.) are true, and no-one will come out of the woodwork claiming they actually own the land, not the seller. Happily for us our real estate agent guarantees to refund all our money if anything goes wrong, so we’re able to take advantage of the system to legally save several thousands of euros in taxes.

But those other purchasers are in a less fortunate situation. They have to declare the full purchase price of the land and then have to pay taxes on twice this amount, despite not actually gaining any benefit from their proximity to the sea. If anything goes wrong the whole amount they have paid would be recoverable from the seller, but not those additional taxes. A good reason to buy land just a few km from the sea.

Now we have to make a final decision about exactly what to do next. Watch this space…

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The Swings and Roundabouts of Greek Bureaucracy

Sunday, May 31st, 2009
Greek bureaucracy is much like swings and roundabouts

Greek bureaucracy is much like swings and roundabouts

Sometimes it seems like Greek systems are designed so they could never be understood by someone who isn’t Greek.

For me this creates a dilemma. I like to be able to sort things for myself: to understand how to do things then get them done without having to rely on someone else to do it for me. I’m not a control freak (although I do have my moments) but I know I’m an intelligent human being who is perfectly capable of dealing with things, and of understanding them. But here we are in Greece  where it’s not always that easy.

Take taxes.

We know we have to make a tax declaration even though we don’t don’t expect to pay any tax yet. We first spoke to a local accountant last spring and explained our situation, conscious of a potential deadline. ‘Come back in January’ he said, which we did, to be told ‘Come back in March’ which left us wondering why we’d been told January. ‘Come back in May’ was the next offering.

Lulled into a feeling that we were going to be sent away on every visit, and knowing we have little, if any tax liability at this stage, we didn’t rush back at the beginning of May but sauntered in mid-month. This time we were told the deadline was the end of May, a fact we would have liked to know earlier, but clearly weren’t to be worried with. It also appeared that we should be sponsored by a Greek person, and that having non-resident status could be better for our tax situation. An interesting point, since we needed a tax number and residence permit to buy a car and to buy land. No-one asked us for a Greek sponsor when we applied for the tax number. And all we had to do to get residence permits was go to the police station and ask…

We were also told that we need to supply information regarding our rental arrangement, depending on how we want to deal with it – we do have a choice, it seems. We can declare that we are renting, in which case we need to show monies paid each month and our landlord’s tax details. Or we can choose not declare, in which case we still need to provide our landlord’s tax number, but in this instance to indicate whose ‘guest’ we are. Seems the tax authorities are happy to accept that people accommodate others for months, even years, without taking any payment for it (and even when they’re not family).

The next step was to discuss this with our landlord. We didn’t mind either way, but there could be a tax liability for her if we declare the rental, so we felt it should be her choice. Her reaction wasn’t the one we expected. Yes, she was happy to give us her tax number but she was more concerned that we were going to someone else to submit our taxes in the first place. ‘Give me your papers’, she said, and I’ll put them through my accountant.

‘But if you do it all for us we won’t understand the process’, I said, ‘and what happens if you’re not around in the future?’ To her credit she fully understands this viewpoint, even though it’s not the one taken by every foreign resident, many of whom are happy to hand everything over and not think about it. She’s agreed to explain the paperwork to us, and said that once we are settled in our own home we can – of course – do this ourselves, although she would still be happy to provide this service, as she does for other people.

Then there’s bank accounts:

When we first arrived we opened an account with one of the local banks, managing to get money transferred and a cash card issued without any help. The latter involved persuading the cashier to get our card sent to the bank for collection since we didn’t have our own individual postbox. But as interest rates in the UK headed towards zero and the exchange rate also headed resolutely in a downwards direction, we decided it was time to minimise our future losses and get our remaining funds over to Greece.

The question to our landlady was simple (so we thought): can you please help us to look at Greek banking websites and work out which is the best option for our savings. The involvement we were seeking was clearly defined: help us understand the system so we can make a decision and act.

The solution was different. Once again we found ourselves caught up, being helped beyond what we had asked for. This time our landlady spoke with a friend of hers who worked in a local bank, and also mentioned our request to her father (in passing we assume though you can never be sure) who told her of offers in other banks. The upshot was that a few days later we found ourselves being introduced to our landlady’s friend and being offered a savings rate that was very competitive.

And even though we were happy to accept the first rate offered she kept nudging it up a little higher until we knew we had an excellent rate. Something we wouldn’t have achieved without our landlady’s help. We would never have known that it is possible to negotiate an individual savings rate, different from the standard advertised one. And even if we did know, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve it without a Greek go-between.

Okay, the final decision to deposit the money was ours, but who’s going to get up and walk away from the best interest rate on offer?

So it really is a swings and roundabouts situation. To find your way around the intricacies and quirks of Greek officialdom is challenging for a non-Greek (and many Greeks as well I’d guess). Going it alone is possible, but sometimes being willing to give up some of that control gets you the better result.

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Health Matters

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

I don’t know how many books and articles I’ve read that told me not to trust health care systems in foreign countries. I was promised old fashioned, out of date facilities, and low standards of care. The writers told me that I would be extremely foolish if I didn’t buy private health insurance, and hinted that I would live to regret it, often illustrating this with gory tales of injured or sick travellers.

This view is hopelessly out of date, especially when you contrast it with the dire state of the overburdened NHS.

What they also fail to tell you is that for many people in or approaching retirement, the cost of private health cover overseas is significant even when there is no history of illness. In fact it’s out of reach for many people especially in these days of poor exchange rates. None of the people we’ve met have private health cover; and several have used the public health system and speak glowingly about it.

Pension age people and their dependents moving to Greece can access the local equivalent of the NHS – the IKA system. When we first arrived a friend told us his experience of registering for IKA: find a local office, take several photographs and expect to spend hours trying to complete Greek paperwork with no translations. Not something to look forward to.

We actually found the system a whole lot easier than expected, partly because the UK authorities had been efficient in sending us the all the paperwork we needed, already completed with our NHS details.

Armed with photographs we went to the local IKA office, where the staff were helpful and understood English. Our paperwork  was European-wide so there were no problems about its being accepted. We were asked to leave the forms and our photographs and call back before the office closed.

An hour later we were the proud possessors of IKA books, our passport to all manner of services. These have to be revalidated annually in January or February, and are used to record all medicines issued. Our books are quite thin, but we’ve seen people in pharmacies with books the thickness of a hefty novel, the chemist tearing out slip after slip and delivering an increasing pile of medicines in return.

So far I’ve only visited the doctor once. I was disappointed to find he didn’t even want to see my precious IKA book.

Our passport to healthcare

Our passport to healthcare

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