First in 2008/9 Polish properties were at peak.I dont think you couldve got 3/400k for sure(sorry i dont know the property also just guessing)
Buddy about not suing the dump truck driver WHY? he is also a party in that(he got paid to do the work ,he knew what he was doing)Remember in a law suit the more the defendents,merrier it gets:)Incase of judgement someone gotta have some money or collective money still fills your pocket.Sorry but its business as usual:)
Honestly ill even add Police dept on the defendents list.
That's what the value was according to some website that's similar to Zillow in the US when I checked it like 6-12 months after the sale out of curiosity. I mean it's not 100% accurate but it gives a decent approximation. Even if it was $250k that's still 3x more than the $80k we got for it. We needed the money though at the time as the situation was rather desperate in the US (early US recession years, perhaps even a little before the US recession). The person who bought it must be jumping for joy now though. I'll have to look it up and see what the current value is. I don't remember the exact address by heart but I have it at home.
The house that I posted pics of though I had it formally assessed but although the home isn't worth much but there is a lot of land. I do remember when we sold the Zlotniki house it was around the time that housing prices were falling drastically in the US because we needed to sell that property to pay off the property taxes, which are ridiculously high in Chicago. But yeah, we didn't get much for it.
I don't know I mean my brain is like fried from dealing with all of this. It's in the lawyers and polices' hands now. I mean if I could stay in Poland and just focus on resolving this I would but unfortunately I had to get back to work. I will go again in a few months although this time I'm going to vacation a little before and after dealing with this situation. What I did wrong is I spent almost everyday on the phone, surrounded by paperwork and an ashtray overflowing with Marlboro Red butts. I did at least get to see my family in Wroclaw, Walbrzych, Rychwal, and Konin but even then I felt bad because I was always on the phone.
It seems like real estate prices fell a lot. When I last checked similar homes in Zlotniki a bit after the sale of ours (around 2006 - give or take 1-2 years) they were much more expensive. Also, we put it up at a very cheap price so that we could get some cash asap.
Our zlotniki home would've been almost exactly like this: 4-5 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, 2 stories, lots of wood everywhere,
This one would come out to around $240k or so with the current exchange rates. So yeah, someone basically got the same thing for $80k.. lucky family = ) I'm kind of glad they did though since they seemed like a very nice young couple.
Don't buy property in Poland unless you yourself look after it regularly or have someone you can really really trust look after it.
Or just get a very good security company to look after it. The bigger (more reputable) companies can easily install a system that will protect the property for not very much money.
In fairness, this looks very much like the property was already abandoned and they took advantage of the situation. The condition of the house is so terrible that they probably gambled (wisely) that the owner wouldn't be able to stop them in time.
Anyway, if you want my advice - sell that land ASAP. The new laws come into force in May which will effectively make it much more difficult to sell land. You could be years in court with no resolution with the bills mounting up, and I know that the building industry creates and liquidates companies very very quickly.
If it was classed as agricultural land, then you've lost nothing except the damage to the house.
Adrian I know it might be hard to take the decision to sell in this market but what if (God forbid) someone dumps industrial waste or asbestos on the site, have you checked to see who would be liable?, I had this in the UK, luckily we manage to convince the travelers to take back the asbestos sheets they had dumped outside our factory.
WRONG, if it's claassed as agricultural land he has lost a lot as lots of infertile/ toxic garbage has been dumped on it. Again Delphi please don't guide people wrongly. As you have stated in your profile that you are into law & business, records prove you have failed miserably in both,.
@Adrian:please be beware of inexperienced and useless advice and act with your intuition that you feel comfortable with.
I had a family 'friend' residing in it to keep up the maintenance but he didn't do anything and got like 1-2 years of free rent. I have a feeling he may have told the company that it's okay for them to dump/continue dumping.
I'm fine with battling this out in court and I don't plan to sell the land since aside from this property the only thing we own is a condo in the bloki in Wroclaw where my grandma lives. We bought her that place so she didn't have to worry about maintaining a house. Unless I get like some great job offer in Poland (which I'm actively looking for) I think it will be at least a decade before I move there permanently. I do have Polish citizenship though.
I plan to bulldoze that house anyway as I know how to build and remodel homes. I know carpentry, painting, drywall, tiles, etc. but not so much plumbing and HVAC. Electrical I know enough to wire a house but the electricity is a bit different in Poland than in the US.
Up until recently the only bill I had with this house was the property taxes which are very low in Poland and that's one of the main reasons why I wish to move there.
I don't really see how I lost nothing except for damage to the house if it was zoned as agricultural land. I mean the land is totally ruined like they ripped out every single apple tree and dumped rubble - like dirt mixed with huge blocks of concrete. It's hard to see in some of the pics because of the snow but if you look at these you'll see how badly it's been torn up. I don't see how anything besides weeds will ever grow there unless the rubble is taken out. If you look in the corner you'll see huge blocks of concrete that a human wouldn't even be able to lift.
Thanks for the advice though much appreciated.
This is the company that did this and their project - as you can see it's the same neighborhood. As I said Delph, I wasn't lying about this or exaggerating anything.
That's the one - they were building some canals or something but instead of properly disposing of the rubble they figured it'd be easier to just dump it on my land.
Adrian When you deal with the big players, they will just point the finger to a subcontractor (Real or made up) then you will find the contractor has conveniently gone bust, this is just one of the many tricks big contractors have up their sleeves.
I know that's what scares me. In this case though I don't think they hired a subcontractor though. My lawyer found out that Skanska, which is a multi million dollar company with operations in many countries, is liable. I don't have 100% of the details but from what I have gathered it was their trucks, their employees, etc. on my property and doing all this. What worries me though is that Skanska has a lot deeper pockets than me so they most likely have a team of lawyers on retained and can even bribe a judge if need be. Hopefully, they'll just settle and either fix my land, buy the property from me at fair market value, or repay me for damages. We'll see. In this case, while I don't have as deep pockets as an international corporation, the media may help me and I have heard back from some news outlets that were interested in the story. Maybe they'll get shamed into making things right, I don't know. I do know that this will be a long drawn out process filled with sleepless nights and migraines. All because a multimillion dollar company wanted to save a couple grand and destroyed someones retirement in the process.
i just got off the phone with the lawyer and private detective.... the company is STILL digging and dumping on my land.. i am totally lost idk what else to do..
i found out that the police interviewed one of the drivers and he said that he was there 'by accident' and now they're not even stopping further damage of my property.
My suggestion is to pay someone to document exactly what happens over the course of the week. It shouldn't cost you a lot - I can point you to a Facebook group where you can find someone to do it. Just get them to document everything - registration numbers, descriptions, the lot. Then - get someone to follow one of the trucks from the building site to your property, so you have a witness that will vouch for all of this happening.
Then the most important thing is to secure the property. It won't be that expensive to pay a private security company to have someone sit there for a few hours.
If you want me to verify anything, I don't mind dropping by as I'll be going by Wrocław in a couple of weeks to the mountains anyway. It's no problem to help - I can't replace the private investigators/lawyers, but I don't mind giving you an honest answer as to what's currently going on there. And I don't want money, just a thank you ;)
See the problem is even though I have a private detective and tons of photos and 2 witnesses, I guess that still isn't enough proof. The damage is done and whether they dump another half ton of rubble on top of the 4-5 tons they already dumped I don't think its going to make much difference at this point.
I don't know if I have like a knack for hiring the most incompetent people in Poland or what but literally I even had to tell the private investigator/detective dude to put cameras around the property - like he couldn't even think of that himself?!
Thanks I appreciate it I really do but I don't want to waste your time. I spent 2 months in Poland recently so I have a good idea of what's going on there. Plus I have cameras set up so I mean there's really nothing new. Most of the time it's quiet then suddenly in the afternoon 3-4 dump trucks will come in in like 45 minute trips, dump a bunch of rubble, and then stop around 5. There was a big metal gate and a fence around the property - the fence is still there but it looks like someone took apart the gate recently and I'm assuming sold it for scrap. There's really nothing new you'd discover that I already don't know at this point anyway.
I can deal with the bums breaking in, drinking beer, and pi$$ing on the walls inside the house. Even then, i got someone to live there rent free (after hiring a cleaning company to clean everything up of course) so that wouldn't happen anymore. The ripping of the apple orchard, making the land look like it's been pounded with mortars... that I can't deal with. To add insult to injury, I feel like the police did absolutely nothing. Like I just don't understand why it's so difficult to prove just two things: 1) This is my property - here is the deed, my property tax receipts, my mail, etc. 2) Here are dump trucks driving into my property - they are dumping without my permission. Literally, this conversation occurred with me and a cop in the driveway and I'm showing him documents to prove its my house while dump trucks and going in and out... he didn't even stop them - only once did the cop write down some info and like a month later question a driver who said he 'got lost and went in by accident' Then, the cops stopped answering my calls so I had to go in person. After a while, the commadant or captain or whatever would literally hide to avoid me or like sneak off so I didn't see him. If you can only imagine how frustrating this all was. Here your retirement property, your family heirloom, is being destroyed and the police are not only not helping you, but they're avoiding you too so they don't have to do extra work... Thank goodness for Valium...
Oh ya lots - there's several GB recorded. But still I guess that's not enough for the police to prevent them from coming for whatever reason. It seems ridiculous to me but yeah they were even there today - I guess they found out I went back to the US.
I mean the land is already ruined, as far as the damage and monetary aspect they're not really doing much more harm by dumping more... it's more the principle and adding insult to injury.
Ohh man that really is a horrible situation. I hold considerable property in Poland, a large manor house with lots of out buildings and considerable land - around 10 hectares. Not inherited BTW, i bought it. Its well looked after and maintained though, i have people living there and maintaining the grounds. When i lived there i had people taking dumps (crapping) in our outbuildings when we had two week water shortage, steeling metal, using parts of our land to grow their veg...all sorts really. The scams used to come from every where, some of them genius in there ingenuity.
Sounds to me that someone knows all to well that this house belongs to a person living abroad somebody who has money and who also inherited it, so you wont get much sympathy from the locals. I'd suspect the guy who was living there, doing a deal with a back hander to allow them to dump, he probably sold the gate for scrap metal as well.
With regard to selling your house in 2008, you would not have gotten more money in 2009. The market began to stagnate 1st quarter 2009 if i remember rightly and virtually nothing but inner city property sold and that was for well below peak 2008 value.
You got to laugh at Polish property websites with people trying to sell crap holes for millions, many of these properties are on the market for years.
You need to be realistic on the valuations though.......3.8million! it wasn't worth even 10% of that in livable condition.IMO of course. As to the $1M to put the land back as it was! Here is a part list of our landscaping last year. hard landscaping took 2 months and involved moving 100's of tonnes of earth covering 16000m(heavy machinery)..cost 100,000PLN planting of 1000x 2m tall rooted willow and hazel trees..........cost 11000PLN planting of 100x 2m rooted fruit trees (mainly apple variety)..................cost 6600PLN The fruit trees will take another 6 years to grow to their full potential.
Why the heck hasn't your lawyer sent a complaint to Skanska H Q?
I'd suspect the guy who was living there, doing a deal with a back hander to allow them to dump, he probably sold the gate for scrap metal as well.
Yes you're right about that. Well, let's say he knew about the situation and didn't stop them. Perhaps even took some money from one of the bosses so they could dump there. It sucks because this was basically like the town 'couch surfer.' Real simple guy - didn't have a car, laptop, or anything like that but wasn't an alcoholic or druggie either. He would do some light labor and house cleaning for my family, stuff like that. I offered to let him live there in exchange for maintaining the place but instead he ripped out the fixtures, destroyed the home even more, it just sucks.. The inside wasn't pretty but at least it was liveable and the heating, plumbing, electrical all worked.
The locals have known my family for generations and many of them have offered to go to court as a witness. They're not the problem - the neighbors are awesome. They all thought I sold the place. Actually, one of the neighbors at first contacted me asking if I sold the place because that 'couch surfer' guy was illegally renting out the land to put up billboards. He didn't tell me about it but seemed sincere in his apology so I let it go. I could've kicked him out but again, this was a family friend and also he could've caused more damage to the house. If I showed you pictures of that house and the property from 10+ years ago you wouldn't believe it's the same house and land. I'll have to find them - there's not many but I do know we took some pictures there when I'd vacation and when my parents were younger. I'm not rich either - far from it. I'm towards the lower end of upper middle class by US standards and I have a nice home and the property in Poland but I definitely don't make like 100k or more a year. I'm in my 20s though so hopefully as my career progresses and I finish my MBA I'll make a little more.
It's more the police and just seemingly inept private detective and possibly lawyer too. Like I literally had to tell the detective what to do to gather some evidence - his idea was basically to just rely on the police report and whatever the police do.. I'm like well dude, what do I need to hire you for then? I think he got the point... Another thing is although I can speak, read, and write Polish very well I'm not a native. It's a bit hard for me to understand all the legal language and understand how bureaucracy works. I understand that there's a similar 'innocent till proven guilty' custom but I mean what move evidence do they need? Like I s
Another issue was that most of the lawyers charge per hour and some took a retainer + a percent of the settlement upon suing the parties. I figured the lawyers who took a retainer plus a percent of the settlement would be more likely to work harder on this case since to me, as a salesman, going after a commission. With hourly, I don't know if they're just messing around and charging me for hours where they didn't do anything - I wouldn't know from an ocean away.
My life for the past few months has been like go to work, try to sleep for a little (which usually doesn't work) and get up at midnight so I can call the offices once they open in Poland, stay on the phone till like 3-4-5 AM. Sleep for 1-2 hours. Drink several cups of espresso throughout the day (big cups like 12 16 oz cups just full of espresso), go to work and repeat. I haven't even been able to really go out because by the time friday comes I'm so tired from the week that I'll pass out by 8-9PM and sleep till 3PM the next day. I never imagined this to become such a big problem with no end in sight. I really really want to fight this but I feel that one day my nerves are just going to get the better of me and I'll say screw it just so I don't have to keep up with this everyday. I don't know if someone would buy this property with the way it looks I mean you'd have to fix the land no matter what unless the person demolishes/remodels the house and can live with an eyesore next door. Even if I put it up for say $100k, which would be super cheap considering it's 1.3 hectares, you'd have to invest several hundred k (maybe even a million USD? who knows?) to fix it up.
it wasn't worth even 10% of that in livable condition.
Yup, unless you have something within a major city in a very desirable location you can forget about getting decent money, you can buy a house in need of renovation and around an acre of land a 10 minute drive away from most major cities for about 150,000 PLN, so why pay more? The market is terrible at the moment, in 2008 you might have gotten half decent money - but now forget it.
I'm not lying to you about the assessed value. I thought it was absurdly high too. But I mean that's what the assessor said - 3.8 mln zloty.. Then again, the house wasn't demolished, the interior was remodeled, and various work done around the property. Still though, I thought it was waaay too high. I have the document in my files I'll try to find it and scan it. Maybe the assessor was another bs'er just like these cops and private investigator. I'm trying not to stereotype, but it literally seems like every person I hire in Poland to perform some kind of service is utterly incompetent. I personally wouldn't pay $100k for that land (even before the dumping) but hey if he says it's worth it lol... If you guys know a good like real estate website where you can look up the value of properties in Poland I'd love to see it.. I remember viewing this 'Polish equivalent of Zillow' a few years back but I forgot the URL.
See the problem isn't so much planting trees and putting in new dirt. That's at least refreshing to hear that it'd be much cheaper than my estimate. The thing is, I don't know if I'd first need to take all the rubble out or flatten the earth or what I'd need to do about all the stuff they dumped. I think that may be much more expensive that just putting in new fill dirt and some trees.
If I could have it my way, I wish I could get a court order to get an excavator and destroy the site managers' property - dig up his trees, leave caterpillar marks in his grass, destroy his birdbaths, make huge holes in random places... Eye for an eye...
If I do fix this place up I am definitely going to spend at least $5k-$10k a year to monitor the place, install a top notch alarm, have some mean dogs roaming the property... I might even be able to get away with some electric fencing or barbed wire since it's zoned as agricultural and I can say it's to keep the animals from escaping... I don't know we'll see what happens. If it becomes too much of a headache I'll sell it but for now I still have some fight in me. Mainly because I want to honor my ancestors by fixing up that property and also retire there when I'm older.
Thanks for all the advice guys I really do appreciate it. Right now the lawyer is says he's in the process of 'proving' that it was in fact Skanska's trucks, employees, etc. I don't see why it's so hard to prove that when the license plate numbers and registration of the dump trucks show that they belong to the company...
I guess for now all I cna do is wait... I'll let you guys know what happens so if God forbid, you ever have to deal with trespassers, vandalism, or other unexpected property issues you'll know who to contact, what the bureaucracy is like, and so on.
One thing I can tell you... the police were more of a hindrance than a help... but yes I will call the public prosecutor that's a good idea although I think he may first need charges (from the police against the company/individual(s)) before he can like take them to court or whatever... i don't know i'm not a lawyer... i still don't know why these people weren't charged for at the very least trespassing and prevented from reentering private property..
Adrian you are a young guy with a future ahead of you, get rid of this blight on your life, it is not worth the sleepless nights or Valium, concentrate on your career and work hard to succeed at what you do best, later when you are ready to come to Poland (If this is what you want) I am sure you could buy a nice place at a good price.
Don't let this mess drag you down anymore, get rid and don't look back in case you turn into a pillar of salt.
Do not look at walking away as any kind of failure on your part, It is ok to lose small battles to win the war in the end.
Snip a map and point out the approx location of the land, let us value it on here. You wont get any BS from us. That white house would probably be better off demolished and something rebuilt in its place, it can be way less hassle and cheaper to do that than renovate. If the land was zoned for building it would obviously be worth more, agricultural land isn't worth much anyway, you can buy for less than 10 PLN / m2 in the country.
Adrian you are a young guy with a future ahead of you, get rid of this blight on your life, it is not worth the sleepless nights or Valium
Thats good advice man. Thats what i did with my property in Poland, i just stopped caring, stopped thinking about it. I honestly wish i never bought the damn thing. As soon as i did that i was able to move on. I'll sell it at some point but I'm not in any rush so i don't really care. The stress that house has put on my wife and I over the years has been immense.
Thanks I appreciate it I really do but I don't want to waste your time.
No worries. But one question - does the land fall in Wrocław proper, or is it under a different municipality? The reason I ask is that if it's in Wrocław proper, I can point you in the direction of some people that can help put pressure on Skanska.
hey sorry for not responding - i'm usually on PF during work hours... makes me look busy like typing up a storm... hence my long replies a lot of the times =D
yeah i took a look at the ksiegi wieczyestej and there didn't seem to be any issues. when i first learned about this whole situation it was actually from my aunt who was driving by it and saw excavators and dump trucks. i thought maybe i forgot to pay the taxes on it (which are very very low, especially compared to the $10k a year we're paying for our chicken coup here in Chicago which is going to be raised another 17% starting this year) and they repossessed it. I was a nervous wreck waiting for the office to contact me back and that they were going to contact me with bad news - you didn't pay taxes, your property was auctioned off, etc. but yeah no issues - everything is paid up, all the documents are valid, etc. the first thing i did was actually go to the tax office when i got to poland and collect documents to show that this property is in fact mine.
i don't want to post the exact address because when you google it there's only like 7 search results that pop up. so when all these court proceedings get started i don't want this to be used against me in some way.
delphi i read both of your emails - i responded to one but couldn't respond to the other - i don't know why i'm getting an error message even after i deleted some of the emails my inbox... i wanted to ask what address you used to find the property... i really do appreciate you taking the time to look at this though that's really nice of you.
Delph... oh my God... I can't believe you found that... that is my property!!!!
e-gn.eu/pl/show/dzialka/4 1.3 hectar corner property... it's actually shaped more like a weird trapezoid but that's definetely it because it's the corner lot.. and they put it up for sale for 5.4 million zloty?!
What the heck is going on?!!??!?! How can someone be selling MY land - i have all the documents proving that this belongs to me.. Jesus Christ
nevermind... disregard that, that was an old ad from a few years ago... sorry I got really scared I didn't recognize the company at first... I wonder why the google view showed that the sign was still there though I don't think we're offering it for sale anymore...
Sent you a PM - I think there's some things we need to check, I'm actually worried that Skanska might have somehow obtained a legal contract to do what they're doing :(
My lawyer told me Skanska is claiming that they subcontracted that work out but I mean clearly they even say on their own website that it's their project.. It's BS of course. Like I thought I was doing everything I should but the PI and the cops really let me down.
My issue is that there were like 3-4 dump trucks that were present while the police was speaking with me on his property. So he literally saw the dump trucks coming onto my land with his own eyes. However, he only interviewed one of the drivers and the driver said he was there 'by accident because he was lost' i mean that's ridiculous... Even worse, I hired a private eye yet I was the one who proposed to him to set up cameras and I only did that because after like 3-4 weeks of hiring him I realized he did little to no actual work and I pretty much had to tell him what to do. I mean I know it's my property so obviously I'm going to be more concerned what happens to it than say some cop or even the private eye that I hired, but still if I'm paying the person they should at least display some level of competence in their position.
I posted some of the stuff my lawyer wrote but I don't really understand a lot of the language. I can speak and write better in Polish than I can read and understand conversations. The Polish spoken in the US is much more Americanized in a way than the Polish in Poland. I don't have much contact with Polish people aside from my parents and a few friends and even then we usually speak English - except for with my dad who doesn't know English that well but even then we use Polish intermingled with English.
OK, I'll post what I've learnt here in case it helps others, too.
- Check the zoning of the property. I've got a strong feeling that at that price, it's not agricultural land. - From the photos you provided and compared to what's available online, they really did a number on the property. I'm sorry for not believing you, and I completely take back what I said. Consider it a large slice of humble pie!
- It's an idea to get a soil sample taken. - It's probable that Skanska have subcontracted the work, but at the end of the day, they're still liable for it. - It's in Wrocław - so, I suggest that you approach the person responsible from the city side of things.
--
Do you know if the property was actively being marketed at the time of the first damage? I have a strong feeling that the real estate agent is behind all of this. Obviously the problems with the "family friend" haven't helped any, but they must have found the site somehow to begin with. Proving it will be difficult, though :(
You absolutely want to make a complaint to the public prosecutor. Give them everything you can - video, dates, times, the lot.
