Law / Poland's Inheritance Law Without Will [21]

Sounds pretty straightforward - contact a lawyer in Poland to take you through the process. We have phones here now, and even email...

UK, Ireland / Commuting from Kraków to London? [9]

Check out the flight prices - they can be well over £100 in each direction in peak season, which can mount up.
Winters are long and pollution is only a problem for 6 months of the year ;)

Real Estate / Renting in Poland - tenants' rights? [51]

He can't force you to leave without an eviction order from the court, and he won't get one because there's a child involved (under 13 years of age). Keep paying the original rent and get some proper legal advice - Polish law is very much on the tenants side and you have rights that are heavily protected.

Law / Polish inheritance law in Canada [37]

In Poland a will doesn't totally override the rights of close relatives to the estate. Get a lawyer to look at the whole case.

Law / Polish inheritance law in Canada [37]

Yes, the timing makes sense. It can take months to get a court date, and there's no time limit for sorting out an estate - my grandmother died in the 80s and we're only now sorting out the division of her property via the courts.

It sounds like you're looking around for some conspiracy and assuming that the authorities have more power than they actually do. If someone is living in a property and paying the bills (and whoever is renting it out is paying taxes), why should the government get involved? There are plenty of properties here where the owners have been missing since WW2 and a curator is appointed to make sure that the taxes are paid and that the building doesn't become a danger.

Pretty much everywhere it's the inheritors' responsibility to sort things out and there are laws that define how this works. Does some official in your country come round to a recently deceased person's property and quiz whoever is living there and then take a proactive role in sorting out the estate? I doubt it.

Law / Polish inheritance law in Canada [37]

It's an instruction to post an announcement on the website to say that on the basis of art. 144 of the Civil Code, the court has appointed Alicja Kaimierczak to represent Elizabeth Mary Sl, and Monika Serocka to represent Eva M. in the matter of the estate of Kazimierz Kmieciak in the Sopot Regional Court. All correspondence relating to this matter will be sent to these two representatives until the persons (or their authorised representatives) come forward.

Looks like these two people haven't quite been cheated as they have been recognised as interested parties by the court. Instruct a lawyer to represent you in this case - Polish law doesn't work in the same way as common law based countries in the matter of inheritance.

UK, Ireland / Who can transport my car by trailer from UK to Poland? [23]

There are plenty of Polish trucks that deliver food to the UK that go back empty and are looking for stuff to take back, and I've seen cars in the back of the truck when I've picked up my stuff that I sent over to Poland. They advertise in Polish magazines in the UK (e.g. Cooltura).

Real Estate / Renting in Poland - tenants' rights? [51]

You need a court order to evict anyone who resides on the territory of Poland (a baliff won't just act your say so) and it can specify whether the local authority has the obligation to find them housing, or not. If the local authority has to take them on, you will likely have a problem on your hands as generally they don't have a lot of free habitable property. In practice, some landlords (in Warsaw, or so I've heard) do a deal whereby they renovate an uninhabitable place belonging to the local authority (e.g. structurally sound but with no water, electricity or gas etc), in return for the LA accepting the tenant. AFAIK, the need for the LA to house someone is for the specific cases you mention as well as if they're old or there are young children etc. Otherwise, the law changed a year or so ago and you can evict people to temporary accommodation (e.g. a labourer's hostel) where you pay the first month's rent and then they're on their own.

And of course, this being Poland where the tenants hold all the cards, it can take months to get a court order to evict someone...

Law / Testaments (Wills) in Poland - leave people specific things or only percentages/fractions? [6]

I can't answer the question about how you leave what to who but I know you can draft it yourself. However, as anywhere, if you don't know what you're doing it can cause problems down the line so people often go to a notary for this reason. The notary also has to register the notary act in his/her own records so it's "stored" for you automatically.

UK, Ireland / Where to request Polish Birth Certificate / change of name from the UK? [15]

It's very easy - just go to the USC and ask for a copy. Take your parent's and your birth certificates with you to prove you're related as these documents aren't available to everyone.

Real Estate / Renting in Poland - tenants' rights? [51]


Unfortunately, that's not true. There's no such thing as an AST in Poland and if the tenant stops paying or breaks the terms of the contract and you win the case in court (eventually), in practice there's often no way of legally evicting them. Things have got better in places like Krakow where students are pretty mobile and foreigners don't know about the weak Polish law, but tenants still hold pretty much all of the rights.

Real Estate / Renting in Poland - tenants' rights? [51]

@InWroclaw

I rent out several apartments and this is my understanding:
1. No
2 & 3. Depends on the agreement you have with them
4. Once you have a valid court order and another address to evict them to (it's illegal to evict people onto the street here).
5. Nothing is specified by law, but I'd suggest a passport/ID and confirmation of an address that they can be evicted to if the need should arise

6. Nothing is specified by law, but I usually have 6 or 12 month contracts with 1 months notice
7. You have to go through the court to evict them (see 4)
8. Depends on the agreement - it's usually easier for them to pay you and you pay it to your building coop

Due to the difficulty of evicting people if they don't pay, I usually rent to foreign professionals working here on short-term (6 or 12 month) contracts, take a month's deposit. If I rent to a Pole, we include an address that they agree then can be moved to in our agreement - it's a relatively new option under Polish law but I am not really sure how it works in practice. Hopefully I'll never need to find out.