Enforcing a guaranteed lease for a foreign buyer.

The brief.

A foreign client bought an Athens apartment on the strength of a promise, written into the purchase pre-agreement, of a multi-year master lease at a guaranteed annual return given by the seller’s affiliated rental group. It was the rent guarantee, as much as the apartment, that the client had paid for.

The operator group then fell into arrears and tried to wriggle out — arguing that the guarantee, given by one affiliate for another’s performance, did not bind it. The undertaking had to be reconstructed from the pre-agreement and made enforceable.

We grounded the obligation in the Civil Code doctrine of a promise of a third party’s act, which binds the guarantor for its affiliate, and drafted a bilingual master-lease instrument as the primary tool to bring the operator to terms — with the litigation path mapped and held in reserve.

Outcome.

The master-lease instrument and demand were delivered, with voluntary signature and an arrears settlement pursued as the first route and a specific-performance claim — penalty, damages and security — mapped and held in reserve.

The client retains the firm on the wider letting of the asset.