Greece’s health ministry is beginning a long-overdue effort to register, in a unified catalogue, thousands of properties accumulated through inheritances and donations, including apartments, cinemas and even a mysterious pier on the US West Coast, whose ownership and management remain unclear.
Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis, in fact, announced the initiative in late August, saying the ministry and its supervised entities are believed to hold around 4,000 to 5,000 properties worth millions of euros. The inventory is expected to take two to three years and cost at least 10 million euros, with the ultimate goal of putting the assets to use for the public benefit.
Among the most unusual entries is a pier at a port on the US West Coast that was reportedly left to Greece’s health ministry in a patient’s will. Even ministry officials have little information about the property, as there is no complete official file and it remains unclear who currently manages the site.
The ministry’s portfolio also includes two cinemas. The open-air and historic Thision cinema in central Athens belongs to the Sotiria Hospital in east Athens, while the former Titania cinema in the central Greece city of Volos is owned by the city’s general hospital.
The ministry also has property abroad. For instance, Sotiria Hospital owns a plot with a building in Alexandria, Egypt, containing apartments and commercial premises.
Back in Greece, the Agios Dimitrios Hospital in Thessaloniki owns about 30 apartments near Omonia Square in the heart of Athens, most of which are reportedly abandoned. The AHEPA University General Hospital of Thessaloniki owns another three apartments in central Thessaloniki.
Ministry officials say much of the property originated as bequests or donations from patients who were treated at the hospitals. In some cases, officials know that properties exist but cannot locate complete files; in others, a single property is associated with multiple property-registration numbers. There are also cases in which a bequest has formally been transferred but has never actually come into the ministry’s possession.
The problem is not confined to the health sector. The armed forces’ property portfolio includes former military camps, firing ranges and guard posts, alongside more unusual holdings such as an abandoned two-story house in the upscale Ekali district, north of Athens proper, owned by the Navy Mutual Fund and numerous apartments and ground-floor commercial units along a handful of central Athens’ boulevards.
One of the most prominent state properties is the Andreas Syngros Mansion, which houses the foreign ministry at the intersection of Vasilissis Sofias and Zalokosta streets. Built in 1872-73 as Syngros’ residence, it was bequeathed to the state by his wife and sole heir, Ifigeneia Mavrokordatou, under a 1921 secret will on the condition that it permanently house the foreign ministry.
To Vima has reported that Greece’s tax-assessed property wealth totaled 782.5 billion euros in 2026, while recent reforms have also sought to address thousands of inherited properties that remain fragmented or difficult to exploit.
