Work / What salaries are for IT specialists (Senior QA Engineer) in Poland? [59]

Thought I'd resurrect this thread rather than start a new one.

I'm a Technical Writer with a few years' experience, and my Project Manager is pushing me towards QA/software testing so that I can, in corpospeak, wear many hats. From a salary perspective, does it make more sense to focus on my Technical Writing skills or to rebrand myself as a QA tester?

For reference, the only way to reach 15k PLN net as a Technical Writer is to invest in software and training, on tools that cost a minimum of 1000EUR.

Life / Is there anywhere in Warsaw I can contact regarding my missing parcels? [11]

Had a surprising twist. The latest package actually had nothing to do with Poczta Polska - Royal Mail handed it over to GLS because, as the RM woman told me on the phone, they simply weren't happy with PP's service. So if your package goes missing from the UK it's worth contacting GLS instead of Poczta Polska.

However, others have given me some handy pointers about my other missing packages, so I'll chase those up and report back if I get any answers.

Real Estate / Bank for mortgage in Poland? - I have an excellent credit ratings [4]

Having just spoken to pretty much every bank on the market, they'll be looking at:

a) proof of continued employment for at least a year
b) average income of earnings over the last six months

and those were the most liberal criteria. Other banks took longer periods to calculate their average, or discounted employment periods of less than two years. However, I have no idea if they'll take into account overseas earnings. If you step off the plane and into a bank, they'll not have anything with which to measure your credit worthiness, and will have to reject you on the spot.

On the other side, most banks only require a 10% deposit, with a few requiring 20%. Citibank openly state on their website "Polish Citizenship Required" so they've obviously had their fingers burnt by overseas investors in the past, so it's worth talking to a mortgage professional now to find out what paperwork they'll want from you in order to grant a mortgage.

Related: Need a bank for property purchase in Krakow


Thank you for asking this question grspring.
After much research on the internet I saw how beautiful Poland is, and I would also like to know if foreigners can buy property in Poland. If it is allowed, which one is the best bank to approach?

Any replies would be greatly appreciated.

Genealogy / Who are the Poles? Balts, Germanics, or Sarmo-Sycthians? [19]


They're people, just like everyone else. Anything else is just a pointless label.

Real Estate / Negotiating a Mortgage for a new apartment in Poland [7]


BGZ and KredytBank are now combing their loan systems (one bank bought the other) so I'm waiting to hear from their advisors. I've chosen not to talk to BOS or Getin because they have extremely suspicious clauses in their offers and bad reputations. BOS want a "carte blanche" as a security from you - a paper you sign saying you owe them X zloties in the event of a default, but you leave the X blank. Shocking! Unfortunately, BPH these days just aren't competitive.

You're right that I'm confusing prowizja and marza (stayed up too late reading too many offers). Having called a few banks, it just seems that most of the online calculators are hopelessly out of date, so I'll be calling ten banks in total as well as discussing things with the financial advisor connected to the development, since I'm looking at new builds.

This isn't my first mortgage in Poland but you've explained things beautifully Grzegorz, so thank you.

Real Estate / Negotiating a Mortgage for a new apartment in Poland [7]

Thanks Grzegorz, you pretty much confirmed what I thought. I'm expecting to negotiate around 10% on the price of the flat, but they all seem to offer a parking space for 30k PLN, and I have no idea if this can be added to the mortgage or needs to be paid in cash so that will be my negotiating territory.

As for the mortgage, I'm seeing some good offers from PKO, Millennium and Bank Zachodni. Citibank's page says they only lend to people of Polish nationality, and ING still want a 20% deposit.

It's the high marza (loan price?) that's got me most worried. I never understood that idea of charging an up-front fee to lend money.

Real Estate / The current property boom in Poland is a bubble [342]

I'll give an anecdote that supports the stubbornness-of-Poles argument. A friend had an apartment to let in Warsaw; wanted 2400 for a two-room 40m2 place. It stood empty for two months.

She then got an offer of 2200. "It's all I can afford" said the prospective tenant. "But the price is 2400" said my friend, and refused to let it. It stood empty for at least two more months.

So that's four months' rent lost. 4 x 2400 = 9600 zl.

If she'd taken that tenant at 2200, she'd only have lost 4800 (two months' rent, plus the difference for the other two months). I tried to explain this; if you take a 200zl drop in rent, you'll lose the same amount of money over the whole year rather than in a single month. For every month the flat stands empty, you have to rent it out for another year to recoup your losses.

But she couldn't see it. "I need the money now, I have to pay the czynsz and the mortgage". Even though she was losing money hand over fist, she was determined to hold out for the perfect tenant rather than stem the financial haemorrhage.

And the twist? She is a Financial Analyst who graduated from Warsaw School of Economics.

History / For what the Germans owe Poland one trillion U.S. dollars? [299]


This has been my mantra for the past decade of living in Poland. Not a single person posting on this forum was alive during WW2; they've had their entire lives to work, save and build. Blaming someone else's dead grandparents for your current lack of Mercedes is infantile beyond belief.

Law / Do I really need an accountant when I'm self-employed? [16]

Nothing in Poland is in English.

To run yourself as a company (self-employed, effectively) you need to register your company with the Urzad Miasta, register the company address at the same urzad, different department, if you don't own the property you need to provide a rental agreement on it, plus apply for a tax number (NIP) and REGON.

Every month you will have to pay ZUS, and in the simplest way you will have to declare your income every three months to pay your tax. Every 12 months you will have to submit a tax declaration of all your incomes and costs and either receive a rebate or pay more tax.

It is a long and complex process, with lots of penalties, fines and delays if you get something wrong. For the sake of 100zl a month (which is tax deductible anyway) just pay an accountant.

Real Estate / Poland online property ownership checker (government website) [19]

How does one get the KW number?

Law / Overstaying Tourist Visa and not getting deported from Poland? I'm from USA [13]

You need a work permit and a work visa to teach English, as well as qualifications.

Law / Overstaying Tourist Visa and not getting deported from Poland? I'm from USA [13]


So one year's salary for a Pole on the very bottom of the scale, or six months' wages at the Polish national average. And six months (180 days) is the length of your tourist visa.

So come here, spend your cash, then p*ss off if you're not prepared to play by the rules.

Love / Why a polish girl would prefer a relationship with a foreign man? [30]

My mother is over 1000 miles away. For a Polish woman, that's a massive plus point.

Language / Does Polish have a plural of "You"? [51]

citizen67, "you" in English is the plural. We don't have a singular "you" any more (except for certain Northern English regions that cling to thee/thou, especially around Lancaster). However, since "you" is doing a double job there is an emergence of "y'all" and "you guys" to perform the plural function.

Every other European language has a singular-plural distinction here, and it's often referred to as the T-V distinction:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-V_distinction

Where Polish differs is that it uses a very formal system alongside its T-V system. Whereas French for example will use plural you ("vous") for singular you ("tu") for politeness, Polish will use Pan/Pani (Sir/Madam), as a British shop keeper would do before WW2. "How is Madam today? Did Madam have a good weekend?". A plural form of that, "Panstwo", (Ladies and Gentleman, almost), allows a group of people to be referred to politely. You'd only use plural you ("wy") for a group of friends or colleagues.

UK, Ireland / How might Britain`s withdrawal from EU affect Poles there and here? [474]

The vote in the papers had three results; Yes, No and Don't Know. Of those three, Yes had 40%. But if you remove the Don't Knows because, well, they don't know and therefore don't count, then of the remainder, 53% voted Yes, We Want Out.

It's the usual trick of massaging the numbers to get the story you want.

Life / What is the penalty for driving a car without the annual technical inspection? [17]

If you have a classic car and you want "zloty tablice" - classic car registration, then you have one massive inspection and then that's pretty much it. They believe that by owning a classic you'll be responsible for maintaining the car.

On the other side, standard cars go through a standard test as Dreadnought says. It's all computerised so you get a print-out report on the strength of your brakes, the balance and power of your suspension, your steering alignment and so on. Exhaust emissions, lights and beam pattern and horn are also tested. What it doesn't check is for structural corrosion, which is what most British cars fail on. If cars were failed for "sharp, jagged or protruding edges" then as Dreadnought says, 90% of cars would be off the road overnight, but it's not in the government's interest to allow that since a mobile workforce is a productive workforce.

In a few years, when Poland has enough of a middle class, the car manufacturers will lobby for stricter tests that will remove a significant proportion of junk cars each year to drive up new car sales. Combine that with accountable test stations, where cars involved in a crash have their condition checked against the latest technical report and the tester fined accordingly, and you'll get rid of all these Fat Jaceks giving out przeglad stamps for 50zl.

For me, I've driven once or twice without a technical stamp (naughty, I know). It was a lot easier to say I'd left all my documents at home and take the 200zl fine for lack of papers, than risk showing that my docs didn't have a valid stamp. But as others have said, if I was involved in an accident without papers I'd have suffered the full might of the law, and deservedly so.

UK, Ireland / How might Britain`s withdrawal from EU affect Poles there and here? [474]

You might be thinking of the BNP, pawian.

"They steal our jobs" is a common phrase thrown around Britain ever since we started the Industrial Revolution , when the Luddites smashed up weaving looms for depriving honest folk of honest jobs. And although it's been proven wrong countless times, ten generations have completely ignored the Lump of Labour fallacy so the idea isn't going to leave the voters' minds any time soon.

What does annoy me is the approach to funding. When the Eurozone needed 50bn to bail out the PIIGS countries, what was the proposal? Tax the banks. Of course, it was all the banks' fault from the beginning, so it's only right that they should pay.

What wasn't highlighted was which banks had lent the money. As can be seen on this chart:

2010/05/europe-debt-web.jpg

You can see who owes money to whom. Add up the totals, and you'll see that although Britain lent nearly $420bn, Germany exposed itself to $704bn and France an enormous $911bn - more than double that of Britain. In all, Germany and France are owed 75% of the total.

So when the proposal came to tax the banks, why was it done in a way that would mean 80% of the tax? It would be generated by the City of London in a so called "tobin" tax, which charges a fee per financial transaction. In that way, Britain would generate an incredible 40bn euros in tax a year... which would pass to France and Germany's coffers to pay off the PIIGS debts. This was the famous British Veto of October last year.

Is that the solution? Tax the Brits to fix the French economy? What about the other EU funding? What about CAP, the EU programme that subsidises farmers? What about the fact that CAP amounts to 20% of the EU budget, and 20% of CAP goes to France's 500,000 farmers. That's right - 4% of the entire EU budget goes to 0.1% of its population. 17% of CAP is shared among the 12 "new" EU states, even though Poland alone has four times as many farmers as France does. And yet every time the budget comes up for debate "Vee vill not diskuss CAP" say the French. "Non non non, no discussion".

That's why Britain wants out. In comparison to the leech that is France, the few hundred thousand Poles in the UK, who actually work for a living, are no bother at all.

Life / Is it true that Polish don't like small talk? [7]

Pretty much yes, they hate it. In lifts, shops and buses you won't engage in a chat about the weather with someone next to you. If you try and spark up a conversation with a cashier you'll get a tired stare that will tell you to shut up.

On the flip side, it's more than acceptable to meet your neighbours and chat to them in the street if you bump into them; how was your summer, how was Christmas, isn't this terrible snow blah blah blah. But expect it to revolve around how awful absolutely everything in the universe is - that's the favourite topic of Poles.

However, this may be a biased view. Coffee shop workers and receptionists may chat with a foreigner more because it's a novelty, or the mistakes we (I) make in Polish are entertaining. Other people, like post office workers, don't have the time or the energy to waste on frivolous chit-chat.

Real Estate / The current property boom in Poland is a bubble [342]

Yesterday's announcement regarding the postponement of the Rodzina Na Swoim replacement will also send tremors through the markets.

Wyborcza reported yesterday that Mieszkania Dla Mlodych will be postponed until 2014. This caused outrage among developers who have promised to lobby against it.

The ramifications are serious. Developers who had built a glut of new real estate were counting on government sponsoring to shift units. Without that incentive, demand will slump, pulling prices down.

The most important change is the consent of the Ministry to the fact that in the villages adjacent to the provincial cities increased price ceiling giving the right to purchase an apartment with government support. Indicators still will differ from those for cities , but much less than expected .

In fiscal subsidies are to benefit only those who buy a new apartment in a price not exceeding the specified index by the governor of the average cost of construction . It is determined separately for the province and the provincial capital , for example . Warsaw price sqm . Could not now exceed 5790 zł per sq m . , And the rest of the Mazowieckie - 3450 zł per sq m.

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]

Does anyone here have any real anecdotes about getting 17-20% off the asking price? I'm looking for a new apartment and all the current "investments" seem ridiculously overpriced - 7000zl/m2 on the edge of Wola's industrial wasteland in Warsaw seems massively overpriced IMO (ul. Jana Kazimierza, if anyone's interested).

Similarly, after six months of watching allegro, gumtree, oferty.net, gratka et al, it seems the same old offers are on there day in, day out - no new properties advertised, and 20 agents all offering exactly the same apartment on the secondary market. Either there are no new properties coming up for sale AT ALL, or I've somehow missed where all the real property is being advertised...

History / 'Prehistory' Celts in Southern Poland [20]

Because I've read some of his books and come to those conclusions, as was discussed in the "Norman Davies" thread on this forum. If you want to discuss that, then let's do it in that thread and not this one, so that this can remain the Celts in Poland thread.

History / 'Prehistory' Celts in Southern Poland [20]

Norman Davies has to be one of the most dubious "historians" I've ever read. His work is unashamedly biased and while his research may be credible, his presentation puts him in the same airport-junk-fiction category as Bill Bryson IMO.e.

The documentation for Celts is pretty massive. You should focus your research on La Tene culture, which was the dominant branch of Celt in this region. However, considering the Celts were developed in the sense of crafts, language and trade, you get a broad range of cultural artifacts that mean a Celtic tribe in west France will have many similar characteristics to an Eastern* European one of the same period. However, they are considered a pre-Roman culture in this region, so their timeline effectively starts at 450 BCE and dries up around 200 CE.

What in particular interests you in them? Their impact on modern Poland, or something else?

*now Central Europe, but Eastern at that time.

News / Poland blocks any action on climate change [569]

I don't really see how outright misogyny works as anything except an argument against you, kondzior. Got any credible sources to back up your outrageous claims?

UK, Ireland / British people more intelligent than the Poles? [53]



That made my day :D

News / Krakow, Poland considers co-hosting the Winter Olympic in 2022 with Slovakia (UPDATE) [30]

To judge a city's chances based on the quality of its existing infrastructure is to miss the point of the Olympics. Only very rarely do these big sports competitions take place in already-prepared areas; they're given to countries that the Committee have decided need to improve their infrastructure in order to improve their sport. Poland and Ukraine were given Euro 2012 for exactly that reason; their existing sports infrastructure was terrible.

Using the same logic, Poland/Slovakia stand a very high chance of being awarded the Winter Olympics, but it would mean creating easy transport crossing across the mountains. At the moment, it's more than 2 hours to travel the 50km between Zakopane and Chopok, and that's in normal traffic not Olympic traffic, and therefore these two countries have no chance.

Food / UK beers in Poland and for what price? [7]

Most supermarkets have access to Shepherd Neame beers; Bishop's Finger, Spitfire etc, and these sell for a high price; 6-10zl, compared with 3-5zl for local beers. However, you won't find the types of beers found in UK pubs; big-name ales like Greene Man IPA don't have a market over here, nor do the non-beer drinks like cider (strongbow, magners etc).

Ignoring Guinness (not a UK beer), pubs don't stock any UK beers on tap unless the pubs themselves specifically cater to the ex-pat crowd. Even there, ciders and beers will retail for between 12-20zl, compared with 5-10zl for domestic of regional (czech) lagers.

Also, you don't see the foreign brands common to UK pubs. While the big names of Heineken and Carlsberg are available in Poland, foreign brands popular in UK pubs such as Kronenberg 1664, Stella Artois and Fosters are nowhere to be seen in Poland... fortunately.

Bigger drinkers will give better info; I'm not one, but that's something to start with.

News / €80 billion for Poland new EU budget [166]

Penn Boy, that's an indirect example (you're quoting Germans, not the media itself). Also, that's Germans talking about Greeks, not Western Media talking about Poles or the Polish economy.

I'm curious because I work in that industry, and we have to remove as much bias as possible. Sometimes that means being equally critical of both the EU and Poland, and other times equally praiseworthy.

A good story to look at would be the EU's approach to pollution and energy security. Poland receives subsidies to help it burn biomass instead of coal; this resulted in Polish power stations building biomass furnaces, sometimes importing waste material from South America to burn rather than domestic waste, in order to run profitably. But now Polish lawmakers want tariffs on imported biomass, which will make burning that fuel unprofitable. The increased cost will be passed on to the consumer.

So who do we blame for the rising costs? The EU for forcing "unsustainable" green targets on a coal-based economy? The energy companies for trying to "cheat" the system by burning cheap imported biomass instead of local stuff? Or the Polish lawmakers for crippling a profitable industry?

News / €80 billion for Poland new EU budget [166]

There are already mechanisms in place to move assets from one government agency to another; that's not the aim of this financial vehicle. The purpose of it is to disguise national debt so that state institutions can borrow without it showing up in the deficit, and therefore keeping it below the dreaded 60%. But considering all agencies, including the bank itself, are backed by the state, it means the state is the guarantor of the debt; it's liable in the case of a default. That makes it state debt, and while the lawmakers may turn a blind eye to it, the international market hasn't been fooled so easily.

It's clever, but not in a good way. Better would be, as others have said, to reduce the vast bureaucratic inefficiency the present government have built for themselves.