Athens Court Bans Airbnb Rental of an Apartment for Breach of the Condominium Bylaws
Decision of the Athens Single-Member Court of First Instance (interim measures), ΜΠρΑθ (Ασφ.Μ.) 2937/2026 | July 2026
For anyone investing in Greek real estate — and in particular for anyone buying an apartment in a condominium building with the intention of letting it short-term — a decision handed down in July 2026 by the Athens court is a warning sign that must be taken into account: an old set of condominium bylaws, written decades before Airbnb was born, may block the tourist activity even where the property meets all other licensing requirements. The court granted an application filed by a building manager against a company that operated an apartment in the building as tourist accommodation (Airbnb), ordered the company to cease the use, and imposed a running penalty of €1,000 for every future violation — all by force of condominium bylaws dating from 1970.
The building manager, herself an apartment owner in the building, filed the application both as representative of the co-owners and as an owner, arguing that the 1970 bylaws prohibit hotel-type use of the apartments, as well as any use that creates a multiplicity of users or generates noise. The respondent, a property-management company, owned another apartment in the same building and, from the summer of 2025, operated it as an Airbnb unit through a digital platform.
The court held that the condominium bylaws govern the relations among the co-owners, by force of Articles 1, 3, 4 and 13 of Law 3741/1929 — the Greek Law on Horizontal Property (ν. 3741/1929) — together with Articles 1002 and 1117 of the Greek Civil Code (Αστικός Κώδικας).
It was further held that contractual restrictions and prohibitions on use bear the character of a real (in rem) or negative servitude, and therefore bind not only whoever signed the bylaws but also their general and specific successors, and may be invoked against third parties. The restrictions are valid even if the use does not infringe the rights of the other co-owners and no damage has been proven. A breach of the bylaws is, in itself, an actionable ground — no proof of damage is required.
The court added that the validity of these arrangements is unaffected by planning-and-building provisions concerning the legalization of building irregularities, unless those provisions contain an express prohibition. This is a separation between the proprietary-contractual plane among the owners and the administrative plane, and it forecloses in advance a common line of defense — that a property complying with all public licensing requirements operates lawfully.
The company argued that the bylaws do not apply to short-term rentals, this being a type of letting that did not exist when they were drafted. The court accepted the factual premise that in 1970 the phenomenon of short-term holiday apartments did not exist, but rejected the conclusion that the bylaws do not cover it. The gap between the wording of the bylaws and the new reality was bridged through interpretation of the parties' presumed intent, in light of good faith and accepted commercial usage: what would the original owners have provided had they known of the possibility. The answer was drawn from the language of the bylaws themselves, which prohibited using the apartments as a hotel or a hotel-type facility, as well as providing services that generate a multiplicity of visitors or exceptional noise. Having found in the bylaws a declared purpose of keeping hotel activity away, the court applied that purpose to the modern incarnation of the very same activity.
The court listed the hallmarks from which it derived the classification: making the property available for a few days at a time, together with ancillary services — including payment of utility bills and building expenses by the apartment owner, linens and towels, cleaning services, free internet, a parking space, and unrestricted use of the common property. This combination moves the property from the residential category into the tourist-accommodation category. The court further noted that, unlike a tenant under an ordinary lease, whose lease agreement refers to the building bylaws and who is bound by their provisions, a short-term guest does not even know the bylaws exist and does not regard himself as subject to them — and this, too, indicates that what is involved is not residence but hospitality activity.
The company raised several additional arguments, which were rejected: the argument that the listing included a commitment to observe quiet hours and a ban on parties was rejected, because the option of check-in from 12:00 noon allows new guests to arrive precisely during quiet hours and empties the commitment of content. The argument that the guests' average age is 50 to 55 was rejected as a fortuitous datum dependent on luck, incapable of founding a defense. And the argument that many apartments in the building stand empty, so that the number of those affected is small, was rejected on the ground that the bylaws' restrictions protect each of the co-owners individually and are not conditioned on the number of those affected.
That said, two of the building manager's requests were denied. The request to compel the company to remove the listings from the platforms was denied, on the reasoning that the advertising in itself causes no harm to the co-owners; the prohibition applies to the actual use of the apartment, not to the mere offering of it for rent. The request to order removal of the key lockbox from the building's exterior wall was likewise denied, on the reasoning that the exterior wall is common property, and the question of its use is a matter for the day-to-day management of the condominium, which belongs to the general assembly and not to the court.
On the practical plane, the decision underscores the importance of examining the condominium bylaws and the deed establishing the horizontal ownership as part of the due diligence for the purchase of an apartment in a building that has other owners. The purpose of the examination is to ascertain in advance which uses of the apartment are permitted — not only under planning and licensing law, but also on the plane of the relations among the apartment owners themselves, since, as the decision shows, an old set of bylaws may prohibit a use that public licensing actually permits. In a building wholly under single ownership the question does not arise, there being no other owners who could raise a claim.
Particular attention is required from anyone who purchases an entire building, divides it into units, and sells some of them while retaining units for tourist letting. In such a division, as part of the creation of the new units, a new set of bylaws is drawn up — and that is the moment to regulate in it the use of the units that will remain in the seller's hands. Bylaws that do not specifically address Airbnb-type use may be construed broadly and therefore do not necessarily protect; it is an express permission in the bylaws for short-term rental that creates certainty. It is further advisable to include, in the sale agreements themselves, a contractual undertaking by the buyers not to challenge the tourist use of the units retained by the seller, as a second layer of protection on the contractual plane.
In many respects, the decision is not fundamentally different from the provisions of Israeli law and case law. Israeli law, too, treats the registered bylaws as an arrangement binding whoever purchased an apartment after their registration, and the interpretive rules that the Athens court applied to an old text that did not foresee the phenomenon resemble the interpretive rules followed in Israel, which construe a contract according to the parties' intent and its purpose. Israel, too, has seen rulings in a similar spirit: the Supervisor of Land Registration in Tel Aviv held back in 2018 that letting an apartment for short periods is not residential use but activity of a hotel character, and ordered an apartment owner to cease it where the bylaws designated the apartments for residence. Conversely, in a decision from Haifa of June 2026, a claim to prohibit short-term rental was dismissed, on the reasoning that in the absence of an express prohibition in the bylaws, no restriction that was not written into them may be read into them.