News / Amber Gold and other Poland's suspicious institutions [139]

Easy for us to feel smug but how many folk here have got Swiss Frank mortgages based on the promises of lower interest rates. It's equally barmy, affects millions, the losses are far more than most of amber golds pensioners have and and I'm surprised at the number of qualified people, even accountants and bankers that went for it.

News / Amber Gold and other Poland's suspicious institutions [139]


Yes and in 2008 or 2009 then returns on gold probably were much higher than returns on bank interest, shares, bonds, property or any other asset class. Coincidentally the same time these gold deposit shysters entered the market.

The principle is exactly the same - people who signed swiss frank mortgages thought they were able to circumvent economic reality but over a 25 year period were sure to come unstuck. By the way there was an interesting article in last weeks GW that some banks were calling people who had more expensive swiss frank mortgages and asking them to provide extra collateral.

I havent seen the statistics showing pln mortgages to be more underwater than swiss ones - where was that published.

News / Amber Gold and other Poland's suspicious institutions [139]


This is one that really surprizes me. My own business trades a lot of forex and we get inspections almost every year from the NBP (not the KNF admittedly). We have done nothing wrong and nobody ever made a complaint but they always say they have the right to inspect us whenever they want.

But here is an organization that is taking deposits which to me is clearly against the law but they are saying they are powerless to inspect it !

News / Poland's Economy Is Booming! The EU's Success Story? [711]

The cars thing is not really an indication of wealth, more a sign of immaturity in people's attitude to wealth. Most are leased or bought by employers, in fact if you speak to employers here one frustration is that you rarely get half an hour in to an interview with even clever candidates before they start bellyaching about what car they want. And I've almost come to blows with people demanding black cars when the group policy is blue.

Delphians parable about the guy with alcoholic parents is a case in point. A top of the range merc is pushing 300 k zloty. If the guy really wanted to give his own kids a stable start he would pay down a big chunk of his house with that and make do with a Volkswagen or ford

Work / Internship for Engineering company in Krakow, what salary to expect ? [5]

I pay interns 13 zloty an hour. It's about 20 percent above minimum. There are lots of employers who pay them nothing, even reputable companies , so maybe best you clear that with them before you leave. If they are giving you food and board but nothing more it still may be a good deal from an experience viewpoint,

Law / Rights of a consumer when dealing with faulty goods in Poland? [65]

There are some fees with the e- sad, about 20 percent of the normal court fees, so somewhere around 100 zloty.

The success rate of the e- sad is about 80 percent but once you get a positive judgement you have to wait ages for execution as the amounts are too small for the komorniks to give them proper attention. The komorniks also know that it's easier to frighten a small businessman than pitch up in piaseczno and try and get cash out of auchan.

Atnany rate it's not going to be a very effective tool against media markt or auchan. If they decide to contest the case then it will automatically be referred to a physical court, probably in the place where the retailer has their head office. Since most of these guys employ 10-15 lawyers in-house then they will certainly not ignore any e-sad cases. Once you are in a physical court case you will waste more time and money than your router or washing machine cost in the first place.

I would advise you to hassle them at the point of sale as much as possible. Be aware however that if you are abusive then they are within their rights to ban you from the premises, which might be a problem if the place you normally shop at

Law / Where is Warsaw's CBD? [3]

Doesn't have as clearly defined as in American cities but the busiest office place is between rondo onz and the station, about 2 k west of where you are

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

It's good advice from delph. The more expensive or individual the property the bigger discount you can try and get, I have just got 28 percent off the asking price for a place. That will be difficult to achieve in wola or mokotow but 15-20 percent is possible provided you have got your funding in place and are ready to execute.

Be careful of deep discounts on new developments and check that the infrastructure is in place - otherwise you might end up the only tenant in a half finished apartment block, with the developer having gone to the wall long ago. This can be the case even in good locations - I drove past a very well located development in Poznan last week and saw maybe 2 out of 100 apartments looking occupied.

If you get a cut price of say 15 percent and then spend months messing around with a bank then the seller will probably do a deal with someone in the meantime, so make sure you already know what kind of mortgage you would want etc.

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

Its about 70k from warsaw, and its a house not a flat. What you are looking for is a far more liquid market hence you should probably aim more for the 15-20 percent discount. If you have 5 places on your shortlist then one of them will go for it.

What people say about the polish mentality is only applicable up to a point,normally when the bank starts pressing them to repay their credit.

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

One of the biggest residential developers looks like it is in serous trouble , according to today's GW. Gant has circa 450 m zloty of debt that it has to renegotiate.

For those who think prices can not fall to 2004 levels should note that gant share price (theoretically the sum of all future profits) is at 2005 levels.

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

I explained my reasoning. Share prices in theory represent the discounted sum of a companys future cash flows ( google it if you don't beliieve me) . Of course these earnings are not known so the prices are the best estimates. What buyers of the shares at e moment are saying is that the anticipated future earnings are the same as they were in 2005. Yes I was being a bit Tongue in cheek and the debt is a huge factor.

Delph generally the banks don't like to manage distressed assets themselves - it consumes manpower and legal fees. So you are correct t- it's a bit of a vicous circle though, if the bank saw lots of flats being sold below list price in a big development they might get very stressed and start to enforce covenants or even trigger bankruptcy - all depends where the bank stands in the pecking order of creditors. You can negotiate the price of any asset and you are probably experienced enough now to do that.

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

The polish version of the report actually talks about falling real wages which is correct in many sectors.

Suggest you check their website as the research itself is robust and is based on transaction prices not asking prices - amron is set up by a group of banks to monitor mortgage lending.

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

You will probably win. Though I was correct in picking wroclaw as the worst performing town then on these numbers It's only 12 percent down.

Probably will get to a 20 percent drop eventually, it's just taken longer than I expected.

Still a month to go though ! In any case I'm fairly happy about getting 300 k off the asking price of the new place. Notary next week fingers crossed.

Language / What do you say in a doctors surgery to ask "Who is next in line?" [19]

what I find a bit weird here is that if you are standing back say 1 metre from an unmanned counter (which is kind of the British way) then someone will come in and assume that you are not in the line, but just vaguely hanging around. Happened to me a couple of days ago buying a ticket for a carousel and my son lost his right to the cherished fire engine !

Work / Native Speaker Translation Charge (Polish<>English) [12]

Merged:Written Polish translation costs - per page or per word?

What is the going rate for translation - I mean written, non official. Is it per page or per word ?

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

1 trillion zloty is about 30k per head. Doesn't really support the theory that prices are going to rise, in fact it's less than the required deposit for a modest 50sqm apartment in most big towns.

Of course it is a record since history consists of serfdom followed by colonialism, oligarchy, nazi rule and communism.

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

You are mixing up statistics - uk savings are about 40k per head- in pounds. More than 6x the polish amount.
Poland also has a household debt figure. From memory it's about 300 pln per head. Not much.

If you net the savings and debt amounts then despite being totally in the mire the uk household is bvously much wealthier.

There are plenty of other factors that depress prices apart from lack of credit - more important are falling real wages, unemployment over 10 percent apparently permanently, reduced labour mobility, higher interest rates, inability of poles to raise a deposit and most importantly from day 1 of economics o level there is an oversupply of unsold, apartments.

UK, Ireland / Polish Families Moving to Scotland or back to Poland [23]


Dont forget the shipbuilding and the coal mines !

Work / Cost of Living, Average Salaries and Job sites in Poland [263]

for a Pole with no language ability it would start around 2300 gross

For someone with fluent english then 3000.

No idea what fluent Spanish adds to that but could be another 1000 or even more.

Work / Can an English person work in Poland without speaking the language? [13]


250 hours of teaching to repay your investment does not seem too onerous - thats less than two months work for an average Polish labourer. After that everything is profit apart from your bus tickets and your shirt. Yes I'm aware that there is travel time and holiday time but deal with it - put some extra in at weekends or evenings.

Real Estate / Księga Wieczysta (no entry) [16]

If the property you are looking at is an old cooperative property there may be no kw. That happened to me one time before and i went ahead, but it was a few years back.

If you don't tryst your lawyers view then get a second opinion - will only cost you a few hundred zloty and would be more reliable than asking on here.

Real Estate / Księga Wieczysta (no entry) [16]

Yes, it was complicated with ownership and was still in days when you needed Ministry of Interior permit - it went on for about 4 months even before the permit application and absorbed a lot of phone costs as I was out of the country most of the time - one of the biggest issues was that the other guy wouldnt open a bank account, let alone apply for the KW stuff.

Its proved to be a great investment however (probably wouldnt sell it as it is a perfect summer house). It was cheap and when you get very cheap deals sometimes you need to accept risks - as I said if you feel unsure get a second opinion from a lawyer. I'm doing something else at the moment at the list of attachments to the Akt Notarialny is now up to 30.

Not sure if anyone can correct me on this but I dont think the KW is a failsafe proof of title or even a failsafe proof that no mortgage exists - I remember several cases in my business life where we had rented properties from someone who showed us the KW only for some other guy to show up with a competing claim. However once you are physically in situ its very difficult to get you out.

Law / Poland economy is slowing down - how does it affect you? [117]

Surprising thing happened to me this week. Advertised two bog standard jobs for which pay 2000 to 3000 zloty and got over 500 applications. This time last year it would be 40 or 50. I think youth and graduate unemployment is actually showing really damaging trends.

Law / Poland economy is slowing down - how does it affect you? [117]

Jobs were in torun and in Poznan, both relatively prosperous towns.

Negative indicators are obviously wages, unemployment and things like shopping centre visitation. Positive things are that there is still outside investment and still thevinfrastructure getting better.

There are plenty of other sectors showing either real or actual wage falls - construction, retail, finance and I would guess manufacturing in light industry

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

Inwroclaw the answer to all your questions is no. Unemployment trends are negative and though the govt would like to cut interest rates it would have two bad effects - weakening bond sales thus increasing the deficit, and weakening the zloty.

You might get a cut to 4.25 but would be amazed if any lower in next 2 years

Work / Study ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) in Poland [6]

BPP are certainly here but I have no idea if their tuition is run in English or Polish. I suspect there are some English language courses.

Real Estate / Demand for apartments low in Poland's main cities [89]

Yes will be in Warsaw mid nov and we can settle it. First half presume you have won. On Wroclaw let's wait for data before i concede as it's absolutely tanking.

Law / Tax to Poland from US non resident company [9]

Pay an accountant for advice and don't be a cheapskate.

You can set up your Delaware company but the problem you will have is how to extract cash from it. Dividends would be taxed at 19 percent, salary at 32 and interest in a variety of ways - that's just the polish tax. I think you would have 2 or 3 percent effective tax in Delaware too.

Cyprus is probably easier and cheaper - everything in English and the same tax advantages as for Delaware with a few extra. Delaware is really only if you have income in seven figures.

Law / Tax to Poland from US non resident company [9]


In my view that is incorrect and that in many countries including Poland you can be taxed on worldwide dividend income minus deductions for double tax. Getting some english advice would probably cost you about 1000 euro.


Probably yes but the govt needs to act on that in next 30 days, otherwise another year. But there are plenty of other advantages to a Cyprus company especially in a royalties / licencing situation and its a lot less hassle than a Polish entity. No idea about effects on residency permits.

UK, Ireland / Polish women in UK caught involved in prostitution scheme [39]


I agree with that but you could argue it about pretty much any profession - if your a teacher, doctor, taxi driver etc you always need money day to day to support yourself and can't always go and leave in a shack next to the beach.