½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

Greetings,

I am a EU citizen who would like to move to Athens (Oct 9th), I found the house and the owners, through the estate agency, agreed to allow me to block the flat but for just 15 days.

Since I do not yet have residence in Athens, I do not have the AFM number without which I cannot sign the contract and so register myself in Athens as a citizen resident there.

I am literally going crazy faced with the lack of information and the total inability to contact the Greek Government or the relevant authorities.

I could not find one single governative page clearly explaining how to get the AFM online.

Furthermore, it is impossible to contact any Governative office, because to do so you either have to be registered (therefore be a Greek citizen or already be resident there and registered with Taxisnet, or you have to have the AFM number. I could not find one single contact form or email that would allow the communication without these data.

My embassy told me that I can make an appointment online at this address:

but it's not correct (besides it hasn't worked for two days). To make the appointment online you must have:

"the electronic submission code of the digital application to obtain an AFM number"

which you can only obtain if you fill out the M1 form online, linked inside the online appointment page.

That forms seems to be clearly aimed at people living in Greece and willing to be a tax representative (for what for since one will ask for the residence few days after having signed the rent contract)

This is because the form asks for an unclear "tax number" which is not absolutely the equivalent of the one of my country which in fact has more than 9 digits and so cannot be typed in, moreover names and surnames must be written in Greek characters.

There is no explanation on what the "tax representative" is and what usefulness it has when once one has obtained residence and can easily represent himself.

If you use an agency or a lawyer, so far what I've seen, it's a price range between 170 and 200 euro and an agency saying that as a tax representative for one year they will take care of some tax aspects (I do not recall which ones) for which I couldn't care less, cause when I lived abroad, tax declaration as employee or freelancer I always did it on my own, if not, I paid a tax accountant when was the time.

It looks like I'm going to pay simply to have the residency, which is absurd.

Anyone can help with this? 'cause I only have 15 days to get this number.

thanks

erik