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Greeks traditionally have an affinity with London. Being a rich Greek presumably includes the requirement to be the owner of a luxury property in London. This is how it had been back in the 1970s and the trend intensified during the Athens Stock Exchange boom in the middle of the 1990s. But this is nothing compared to the Greek investment in London real estate from the outbreak of the crisis until today. British media have called the phenomenon cash Greeks.
    These are bankers, financiers, politicians, entrepreneurs, physicians, lawyers, shipping tycoons, artists, even an archimandrite and a large number of civil servants who have acquired in recent years a property worth 300,000 euro (modern small-sized lodgings) in nice neighbourhoods to luxury villas worth between 3 and 20 million in aristocratic London neighbourhoods. Of course, all purchases are realized under the strict British laws but they are often made on behalf of off shore companies or relatives.
    Only during the first year of the crisis - 2009 - Greeks bought property in London for 295 million euro. For 2012, this amount will exceed 300 million euro, experts expect. A survey by the consulting firm Savills shows that the Greek investments in real estate in London jumped by 50 per cent in the last six months. For comparison, French investments grew by 16 per cent, Spanish - by 10 per cent and Italian investments – by 9 per cent. The increase was significant during the two election rounds in Greece – on 6 May and 17 June when a large number of on-line purchases were made.
    Significant is the case of a politician from the past, who is still holding a public office and who, according to Imerisia newspaper, bought shares of a company owning a large number of properties in London offered for rent for professional purposes as well as residential complexes. Another case is that of an orthodox archimandrite, who acquired the shares of a large London company that repairs and renovates older homes. Naturally, the richest Greek Spyros Latsis is among the celebrities owning luxury property in London  - he bought a property in the area of ​​Green Park in the 1980s for 6.5 billion drachmas. His father Yiannis Latsis was the owner of a historic estate in Oxfordshire by 1988. After 1988, the property became a boarding school, which last year was sold to a Russian oligarch for 160 million euro - the highest amount paid for property in the United Kingdom. The estate is called Park Place and has a heliport, a conference hall, a spa centre, a gymnasium, ten bedrooms, a large garden and a forest of two thousand acres.
    Of course, the group of Greek owners of large urban properties in London includes Theodoros family and Yianna Angelopoulou, who bought a luxury flat in the Chelsea neighbourhood for 12 million euro in 1990. As a rule, the Greek capital prefers to invest in properties in the neighbourhoods of Kensington, May Fair, Knightsbridge, Regent Bark, Notting Hill, Chelsea.
    Only this year and at the insistence of the representatives of the supervisory Troika the service combating economic crimes has decided to open the bank accounts of six hundred Greeks owning real estate in London amounting to 3 million euro and to see whether it meets the income declared in their tax returns. They made the list in cooperation with the British tax authorities and it contains the names of physicians, lawyers, developers, artists and businessmen. An interesting detail is that some of those on the list have outstanding debts to the Greek state.