Question about Czynsz (Building maintenance fees/utilies) in Poland

the OP foolishly paid already 3 months worth of rent (2 months as deposit) and first month of rent at signing the rental agreement. so she's in a very ****** position

That in itself is a bad sign. She needs to cut her losses at some point, and should sit down with a pen and paper to work out the best strategy for that. And of course dob him in to the tax office.

I would suggest not paying anything more, start to look for another flat and make sure Czynsz is known and then just move out.

It's not true that landlords do not declare their rent income. I have done so for 10 years - not because I am especially honest but more because I don't want hassle over small but undeniable tax bills that might in future affect bigger less clear cut tax questions in the rest of my affairs - better to be straight. I imagine a lot of people think the same.

OP here.

So it is useful to know that I am not the only one who was just unlucky, it seems that this high unexplainable absurd czynsz is a cancer that runs deep inside Poland.

As I said, in my home country, the equivalent of this czynsz is on average about 20 times less than how much it is in Poland.

I do not understand how those who cash in this crazy high czynsz get away with it, maybe it's the kindness and the passivity of natural polish mentality?

How much the owners avoid paying, when they avoid paying tax?

What are some options or ways to delay things, in order to at least make use of the apartment, after I paid so much in advance for it.

Thank you so much guys for all your thoughts, ideas and experiences

Also, how likely it is that the owner registered at the tax office a 6-months leasing contract written in german language (owner proposed translating the contract in german, because he speaks german as well as me). I didn't expect a contract in slovenian language, so we met halfway

Thank you very much

are you sure most bills are not included in this "czynsz"? Water and garbage disposal is included 99% of time, if there is central heating also that, if there is central hot water preparation- also that, if gas is only for kitchen - also that.

I am sure garbage disposal is included in the czynsz. So what ?

1,000 polish zloty EVERY MONTH just for garbage disposal ? Has the world gone insane?

I can carry out of town myself the garbage

In Slovenia, gabage disposal was the equivalent of 12 zloty PER YEAR !!!

Did you contact the spółdzielnia? For now all you have is what your landlord tells you...
As someone said before- czynsz is usually:
-garbage (in my case even electronics and furniture that you are not supposed to get rid off in normal bin without extra payment)
-maintaince/ cleaning/ renovation
-repairs in case of emergency (had ppl coming in to check faulty cooker on Christmas after two hours of reporting it without any payment)
-water
-central heating
--Admin fees of course

Usually the rent is set but it changes after the readings of heaters and water depending on the usage. This year my sis got two months rent back for heating and water just because the winter was mild and she has less need for water.

And good advise:
After you sort the problem out with your landlord I would strongly recommend not comparing two different countries- it will only drive you crazy as there are always differences.

like I said: around 50 % of monthly czynsz fee is heating and hot water.

if you dont have that provided by your spoldzielnia/ city, you will have to provide it for yourself - which means high bills in the winter.

so you saying Anna that you pay 250 euros/ year of czynsz in Slovenia and you have central heating included ? i dont believe it....its not possible

but like i said before - 1000 pln/ 250 euros/ month is way too high for your studio apartment. if its something like 35 m2, the czynsz should be around 400 pln if it includes central heating. so you see ? thats 100 euros per month and it includes heating.

without heating and hot water it would be something like 50 euros/ month..but - the electric and gas bills would be higher

Grauer: maybe that 15 pln/ m2 was overpriced by me.its rather something like 10-12 pln per m2.
Yet, i think that you talk nonsense.
I dont believe that in "other" countries the said fee is 12 times cheaper (as its per year, not per month). its not possible.

In Spain for example, such fee would be around 0,8 eur for 1 m2 which gives us around 3,5 pln per m2 paid MONTHLY. and you dont have heating included in that or hot water.

In England you have something like council tax which is sometimes more than 2 GBP per m2 and its paid MONTHLY. so once again, i dont know what are you talking about.

maybe about some woodshack in africa ? btw. if you have your own house on land in Poland, you dont pay any czynsz at all. but you have to pay for all maintenace, heating and bills by yourself.

the consumption of water and heating is always included in the czynsz? because I understood that there will come different bills for water and heating

if czynsz is usually:

-garbage

that should be very cheap, everywhere in European Union this costs the equivalent of 10 - 20 zl / year

-maintenance/ cleaning/ renovation

this is ********, because nobody comes to clean or to renovate anything. There is no reason to pay this
every month, because it doesn't exist
-repairs in case of emergency

again, not needed at all. I repair everything myself, nobody came to repair anything for me

-water

the consumption of water - even if I let water run free whole day long? really?
seriously? because owner told me there will be a separate bill for it

-central heating

the whole consumption of heating? seriously? because owner told me there will be a separate bill for it

--Admin fees of course

of course, probably this is most of the bill

sawii I am saying that in every normal civilized country where I have been,

consumption of water is a separate bill

consumption of electricity is a separate bill

consumption of heating or gas is a separate bill

czynsz (administration and maintanance costs) is a separate bill, that costs roughly close to 20 times less than the polish "czynsz"

read one more time if it was unclear to you

Omg, you are trying to tell us your landlord is reaping you off and in the same post take his word for everything. Incredible.
We are telling you what is usually included in the czynsz and you are saying yes, but.
Your bit about maintaince/cleaning just shows your ignorance. Who paints the building? Who cleans the corridors? Who swipes the pavement and removes snow in the winter? Who cuts the grass?

Who comes to fix pipes and electricity?
Any spoldzielnia has to give an early report to owners about the spending and owners can come and take part.

Judging by your post about ING you seem to have problems with any service even ones that other ppl don't seem to have. I start to seriously doubt your description of the situation.

I assume you're an adult. If you rented a place you cannot afford or you think that you're being ripped off that is your problem. Honestly do you really think that someone on the internet forum would help you with your predicament?

That is unreasonable expectation.
If you on the other hand only letting off some steam here - far enough. I don't care, that is your own fault make better decision in the future. No one put a gun to your head and made you rent that place for that amount of money.

To be honest you sound like a spoiled kid, you should ask your parents for help.
You could one of those professional trolls that infest cyberspace.

I can attest that in my building too there was no snow to clean and the building was never painted this year.

Still these absurd charges appear every month in the czynsz.

And to Anna2016: you got ripped off. You are naive and a fool for just trusting a stranger with so much money at once.
A majority of polish landlords are dishonest and will try to get advantage from the fact that you're a foreigner. Move on

Wow, no snow to clean? You must have some special kind of pavement then. Most pavements in my town require removing snow quite regularly (depends on the winter but sometimes I can see ppl even twice a day).

And of course the building is not painted every year.
But now I'm sure we are dealing with trolls so bye bye.

There is always possibility to ask your spoldzielnia what is czynsz in my flat to compare with the landlord's version. Only private detached houses have no czynsz but tax paid per year.

And how much is that tax paid per year?

The thing is that I can see, from checking on the market, that identical 90 sq.m. apartments,
in the same area, in similar communist block of flats,
one can have czynsz 240 zl, and another one 1000+ zl...

People should not blindly obey the ripp-off scam perpetrated by these so called "real estate management" agencies

Hey lenka, it is a special kind of troll that you are, first you accuse random people for being "trolls", but the truth is

that if a building is painted once every 10 years,
and you pay 500 zl for building painting every month (which means 6000 zl every year, 60,000 zl every 10 years),
you are probably mentally ill or severely damaged,
or simply you are working for a "real estate management" company, the ones charging these absurd czynszs

One of this things is happening:

- your landlord wants you to pay him extra 1000 zł - but you tell you were given bill so that is not a case
- your landlord misinformed you about the bills you will have to pay - this should have been included in bills stated
- you misunderstood your landlord, and he wants you to pay this bill for more than one month in advance.

you could write down what is written in that bill so we could tell you what is included.
It is possible that previous tenants used too much water or heating and this is why the bill is very high.

I actually used to work in building maitnance so I can tell you how it works. (with "Wspólnota", but "Spółdzielnia should work the same they just have bigger scale, and it's more possible for them to overuse their power)

- administration fees are around 1/3 of maintnance fees so around 0.4 zł /m2/ month = around 450 zł for 90m2 a year - which is probably what you compare your fees at home to this bill

- maintnance bills include all other things that need to be done during the year - all small repairs like the front door, bust pipes, cleaning tha corridors, swiping pavements, all mandatory check-ups. some companies have thair own staff that does it, others outsource- but in yearly statement it's always said how much which one costs., here also go all taxes. (some smaller building might not have cleaning included- if owners agree they would do it themselves. but that's rare

- renovation fund- is for bigger renovation , it's really up to owners how much they want to pay- but if there is a need for big renovation, or they have to pay loan for just finished renovation - it might be high. (the maitnance company might have their own stuff for smaller things , but usually outsoeces for bigger ones)- here is difference wih spółdzielnia, because spółdzielnia has one fund for all the buildings, while each wspólnota have their own account.

- heating bill. for the bill this high I still assume heating is included.
They assume (from previous years) how much /m2 should be paid in advance, and then calculate it after some time. It is usually divided so that part of the building's heating bill is divided per m2. and rest is divided with how much was used. (older buildnings have things on each heater that aproximate how much heat you use, compared to others, newer ones have actual devices that count hear used).

After they calculate it you either have to pay the difference, or are given back the difference (usually you pay this much less next month)

- cold water bill- you say how much water you would use (or they assume from previous bills)- and you pay in advance. then you either pay the difference, or they give it back

- hot water bill- works like cold water

if the building is responsible for hot water you usually pay (cold water price)*(all water amount)+(cost of heating the water)*(hot water amount)

- garbage disposal - is fixed fee, but in different places is calculated differntly.

- gas fee. If the building has gas only for cooker it s paid in the apartment bill and you can use as much as you want. I don't know how it shows on the bill, because I've never seen a bill like that.

all that I wrote are bills that owners of apartments pay- it is not called "CZYNSZ" in any docment. "CZYNSZ" is what tenants pay, so if the bill actually says "CZYNSZ" it means your "landlord" doesn't own the place.

To conclude:
I agree that something is shady with this amount of money. You should investigate more because it everything is how you describe, you should change apartment as fast as possible.

If you write what is included in bill we can tell you more.

everything seems to get confused here ;-)
"czynsz" is czynsz..a fee to "spoldzielnia" . this is how its called where I'm from - south of Poland...However, you may also call it as fee for landlord or whatever. But I dont think thats the case here

and other things: its basically like Marysienka said. heating and water are prepaid and paid by "prognostics". if you will turn on your heaters for maximum in every room for 24 hours, you will have to pay more (it shouldnt be more than 100-150 pln/ month though). if you will turn your heaters on normal levels, you will pay the same or they even get some of the money back to you.

Anna, if you will tell us how much actually you have to pay for your flat in total, how big it is and where is located, we may tell you if its rip off or no.

However, when I see prices of the rent in last years in Poland and I compare it with Spain, Germany and some other countries - it all seems to be rip off for me and I wonder why people still live here heheh. recently I see lots of 50 m2 (2 rooms....) flats to rent in Wrocław for 700-800 euros with bills which is "LOL" level for me, as its similar to Barcelona level....

Typical western point of view :) I worked for "real estate management" company and I tell you that you can always ask in the source I mean their office what czynsz is in your building. Then you can agree or not. My real estate has almost 40000 members divide it by flats and buildings. Czynsz here is from 300 to 650 and in the worst scenario czynsz in Warsaw near 1000zl pcm is possible. Company not only maintenance present buildings but save money for future investments. They try to buy a land, build new houses, connect old blocks to heating grid, install solar panels. Do you know how much cost 1km of 300mm diameter twin pipeline? One heating hub in the basement of the one block cost about 80000zł multiple it by buildings you can see in the estate. When you sign your membership contract there is line "I want join cooperative" no one force you. If you dont want a flat for 200 000zl with czynsz build your own house for 500 000 - 1million zl and no one ask you for czynsz. You will pay a tax about 300zl per year.

just to explain - many people say "czynsz" when they mean "what you pay spółdzielnia/ wspólnota" but it is never oficially called this on paper if you are owner of the apartment. in can only say "czynsz" on the bill if you rent the apartment. And if the poster didn't say it's "commie block" I would assume it's TBS with it's insane rent.

Marysienka you were extremely helpful and I appreciate very much and I thank you very much.

I will try to post an OCR scan in the next days of the whole "administration" bill, because I don't speak polish.

Peter olsztyn: I do not care if the "management company" is buying land, I do not need it, and not requested it.

If in an association of management of properties there are 1000 apartments,
it means the company is getting 1000 * you pay 500 zl for building painting every month (which means 6000 zl every year, 60,000 zl every 10 years)
= 60,000,000 zloty which is exactly 60 MILLIONS ZLOTY

60 MILLIONS ZLOTY for what ! With this amount I can buy a small country from Africa !

not just paint a block of communist flats, for GOD'S SAKE

You don't know what for you paying for, you flop! Whose fault is that? Either use google translation or ask someone, that is what you should have done in the first place.

You should have done your homework before signing a contract, that is obvious. Rents is Poland are considerably high, that is a fact. What are you complaining about? do you even know?

it is an ongoing situation, the more info and details I have, the more I can keep you updated

I was never told about this czynsz, it is nowhere mentioned in the contract or anywhere else.

these czynsz or administration and maintanence fees, I will say it again,
maybe you didn't read the whole thread, were:

- nevermentioned in the rent contract
-never mentioned by the owner ever before
- never mentioned at all, in any way, but presented to me as "you must pay this, this is a bill" the second day

after the owner got his deposit + 1st month rent

Can you understand that the membership in spoldzielnia is voluntary? You want to be a member or not. It is free will. Don't count others people money. You do not care if they buying land. They don't care you become a member.

And you understand that I just came into this situation with 0% of my knowledge, as I was never told before and I never signed anything about paying any kind of administration and maintanance fees commissions ever?

Thank you

But this is the case between landlord and you. You may only go to the court and sue him for misleading or concealment.