Focus on Our Members; Corporate Relocations Greece

  by Maria-Christina Kouris  MA SouthBank University, London  Troisieme cycle University Leonard De Vinci, Paris   

Relocation in Athens is a relatively new concept. Multinational companies, however, tend to use relocation services more since the need of outsourcing these services in a country where the language is difficult and the bureaucratic procedures complicated has become very important the latest years. 

Relocation, easily explained, is the provision of any help that an employee and his/her family may need when traveling in a new country to work and stay for a period longer than 3 months.

Relocation services usually are tailor made according to the needs of the specific family. However, basic packages include the following:    

Preview day: This service intends to provide sufficient local area knowledge to enable a candidate and family to decide upon acceptance or otherwise of a proposed assignment. It helps the family understand the whereabouts of their potential stay in Athens and decide where their future focus on choosing a home (and its type) will be. 

Home Finding: Through the aid of real estate agents, the relocation counselor prepares a list of properties that visits together with the relocating people in order for them to decide their future home to be. Then the negotiations and the signature of contract takes place and the counselor drafts the inventory check in list and hooks up the utilities (electricity, telephone etc). 

School Finding: the parents visit together with the relocation counselor the schools that they believe are more suitable to their children’s needs and decide the most appropriate one. 

Welcome day: The relocation counselor meets with the recently arrived family in their new home and together with a full package of documentation covering various topics of interest (medical care, tel.numbers etc), makes the family familiarize itself with the neiborhood i.e visit of the local post office, police station, gym etc. 

Departure: The relocation company deals with as many as possible issues that the leaving family faces when leaving the country i.e retrieving the guarantee, invetnory check-out list, forwarding of mail etc. 

Immigration: issuance of work and residence permits, registration numbers etc.

Maria-Christina Kouris is the Director of Corporate Relocations Greece Ltd which operates in Athens since 1996 (mariak@corporaterelocations.gr, tel: +30 210 8003510)