A striking example of the perils of property is provided by charities that have been richly endowed with real estate. For example, in Athens, the Asylon Aniaton, a hospice, used to fund itself by renting or selling property. Now it’s unable to sell anything, and of its 887 properties, 396 are without tenants. In 2015, its revenue came to 2.17 million euros while it had to pay taxes of 1.83 million euros (of which 908,839 euros were property taxes). What was left went toward caring for 180 patients.

Property turning toxic may not be as photogenic as the stock images of the Greek crisis — masked youths hurling gasoline bombs, or people lining up at soup kitchens — but it reveals the depth of the crisis and a history of political mismanagement. After many years in which only very valuable properties were taxed, many Greeks went from paying almost no taxes on real estate to not having enough money to pay. In 2010, property taxes accounted for 0.26 percent of gross domestic product, while this year they are around 2 percent, according to state budget figures.

“Suddenly, the state treated the Greeks as if they were rich, at the precise moment that they ceased to be rich,” the federation of Greek enterprises, S.E.V., said in a recent bulletin. It also lamented a World Bank report that ranked Greece 144th among 189 economies in terms of the ease — bureaucratic and otherwise — of registering property.

But it is private debt — at 222 billion euros last year — that may prove an even greater danger. This shows in government revenues. With the unified tax, ownership of every kind of property is now subject to taxation. During the crisis, the economy has shrunk by 25 percent (as of early this year), and many people are unable to pay taxes. Arrears in tax payments at the end of September were at 92.8 billion euros and keep increasing by about 1 billion each month. It will be very difficult for the Greeks to get out from under this mountain of debt. Delinquent loans, which at the end of June made up 31.7 percent of all housing loans, were a mere 5.3 percent of the total in 2008. Tens of thousands of homeowners are afraid of repossessions, which may result in many more homes on the market and a further drop in values.

Property, which along with tourism could be a pillar of recovery, is not helping. The Bank of Greece noted in June that demand for real estate “is hampered by red tape, unclear urban planning regulations and their numerous violations, and the lack of a stable and clear framework for land-planning and use of land.” It also noted the lack of “a comprehensive and precise” land register.

It is inconceivable that after six years of crisis such problems would not have been solved. And yet, the leftist government recently proposed adding further documents and costs to selling or renting property — a compulsory “energy performance” certificate and a civil engineer’s assurance that there are no illegal constructions. The property owners’ federation, Pomida, declared that these new obstacles “threaten to turn the country into an endless ‘property graveyard’ where nothing will be sold, nothing will be bought and nothing will be rented.”

If he could see Greece today, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the 19th-century anarchist who declared “Property is theft,” might change his cry to “Property is debt.”