Who this service is for
Regular home checks are designed for one specific person: the owner who is not in Greece most of the year and cannot physically attend the property on a predictable cadence. Our members are almost always one of four profiles. Greek-diaspora families with an inherited apartment in Athens, Thessaloniki or a village house in the Peloponnese — visited two or three weeks a year, otherwise empty. International second-home owners with a coastal villa or city flat used for six to twelve weeks across the year, then closed up. Golden Visa investors whose qualifying property is held for the residency and rarely occupied. And retirees in transition who have bought a Greek property but haven't yet relocated full-time.
What unites them: the property is producing a documented operational risk every month it goes unobserved. A slow plumbing leak behind a kitchen unit produces €600-€1,500 of damage in eight weeks and €18,000 in a winter. A failed roof tile after a Cycladic storm exposes a ceiling void to six months of moisture before anyone notices. A 30-day insurance vacancy clause quietly invalidates the policy — and the owner only finds out at claim time. None of these require expertise to detect early. They require somebody to be in the room.
Who this is not for
We're transparent about fit. This service is the wrong choice in three situations. If you live in Greece more than nine months a year, you don't need it — you'll catch things yourself faster than any provider can. If you already have a trusted family member or full-time caretaker doing genuine inspections with photo reports, you don't need to pay for what you already get. And if your property is mid-renovation, what you need is renovation oversight (a different service of ours), not monthly home checks — visits twice a month aren't useful when contractors are on site daily.
How the service runs, month by month
- Onboarding (week one). A founder-led intake call. We walk you through what we do, agree the visit frequency (monthly is the default; fortnightly or weekly available), confirm the priority items for your specific property (an old building, a swimming pool, a garden — each changes the checklist), and arrange key intake and secure storage.
- Baseline visit. Before the first scheduled visit, we conduct a baseline walkthrough — photographing every room, every external elevation, every meter and panel. This produces the condition-of-property record that becomes the reference point for everything that follows. The baseline is what tells us whether something has changed.
- Monthly visits. Same checklist every time. The same person where possible (founder-led in Attica; trusted local partners in regions where we have established relationships). 30-60 minutes inside, 10-20 minutes external. Photos taken methodically, with timestamps and geotag metadata preserved.
- Report within 24 hours. Sent via WhatsApp or email, your preference. If everything is fine: an all-clear paragraph and the photos. If anything needs your attention: a flagged section with clear photographs, plain English description, our recommendation (act this month / monitor next visit / urgent), and an estimated cost if known.
- Annual review. Once a year, we produce a year-in-review document — what changed at the property, what was repaired, what's on the watch-list for the coming year. Useful for your insurance renewal, useful for your records, useful if the property is later sold.
The photo report — why this format matters
Different home-watch providers produce wildly different deliverables. Some send nothing. Some send a one-line "all OK" text message. Some send a generic PDF. We send a structured photo report because that's what every downstream party — insurance adjuster, building manager, tax inspector, future buyer — actually accepts as evidence. Photographs with timestamps and geotag metadata are forensically credible in a way that a property-manager's text message will never be. When we say "the property was attended on this date and was in this condition", we can prove it.
This is the difference between paying for a service that mostly comforts you and paying for a service that mostly protects your asset. We've built ours for the second. The 30-day insurance vacancy rule explainer walks through what this documentation actually defeats in a real claim.
Pricing — what regular home checks cost
Regular home checks are the foundation service in every Estia plan. Plans start at €99/month for monthly visits to most accessible properties in Athens, the Riviera, Thessaloniki and Halkidiki. Properties in deeper Mani, Pelion or the Outer Peloponnese are typically €119-€149/month for monthly visits, reflecting routing time. Fortnightly visits run at roughly 1.7× the monthly rate; weekly visits run at roughly 3× the monthly rate. A one-time €100 onboarding fee covers key intake, the baseline walkthrough, secure key storage and the initial condition record.
Annual billing reduces all of the above by approximately 20%. There is no long-term contract. Members can cancel at any time with 30 days' notice. See the full plans page →
Frequently asked questions
How often do you actually visit?
The default is once per calendar month. Each visit is at a roughly predictable point in the month (usually the second or third week, weather and access permitting). You can upgrade to fortnightly or weekly if you have specific risk factors — a recent leak history, a swimming pool open in summer, an elderly relative visiting the property between your stays.
Do you go inside the property, or only check from outside?
Inside. The whole point of regular home checks is that exterior-only inspection misses what matters — interior leaks, humidity, smells, appliance condition, mail accumulation. We hold keys, the alarm code (if any), and entry credentials. Everything is logged.
What if you find something during the visit?
We document, we notify you within hours (not the next day), and — if it's the kind of thing that gets worse if left — we contain it. A burst pipe, we shut the main valve. A persistent leak, we put a bucket and dry the floor. We don't make repair decisions on your behalf. We do prevent the problem from becoming an emergency before you can decide what to do.
Can my insurance adjuster see the photo reports?
Yes. We provide the relevant photo logs and visit records on request, free of charge, to the property owner. If you forward them to an insurance adjuster, that's your call. We've written about how this documentation defeats the 30-day vacancy clause.
Who actually does the visits?
In Attica, the founder. Outside Attica, trusted local partners we've vetted personally and worked with on test properties before introducing a member. Where the founder isn't physically attending, the founder still owns the report, reviews it on the day, and is the single point of contact for the owner. There is no anonymous call-center model at Estia — every member has one human in Greece who is accountable for the property.
Can you handle building meetings, bills and tax admin as well?
Yes — those are our Bills, Building Meetings & Greek Admin service. Home checks and admin can be bought together or separately. Members on our Recommended and Premium plans get both bundled.
What about repairs?
Repairs are not part of regular home checks. When we find something, we report it; you decide whether to act. If you decide to act, we can coordinate the contractor (that's the Maintenance & Contractor Oversight service), but the repair itself is billed separately by the contractor and is your decision and your cost.
What's the typical first-year experience?
Most new members find that the first three months produce a few "things you didn't know about" findings — a slow drip, a roof tile slipped, a balcony drain blocking. The next six months are quieter as we work through the watch-list. By month twelve, the cadence is established, and the visits become a quiet utility — nothing dramatic, everything documented, your insurance file intact.
Where we cover
Regular home checks across mainland Greece and select islands. Most active regions: Athens (incl. Kolonaki, Glyfada), the Athens Riviera, Thessaloniki, Halkidiki, Pelion, Evia, the Peloponnese, Kalamata & the Messinian Gulf, and the Mani. Other regions on request.
Related services and reading
