UK, Ireland / Renewal of British passport in Poland (how long does it take?) [27]

Your new passport should be with you within 3 days.
If you are able to sign for the packet so much the better if not it is entirely up to the delivery driver what they feel is appropriate. They are allowed to leave it with no signature so long as they feel it is safe to do so and cannot be picked up by someone else, otherwise you will be asked to collect from their depot.

Real Estate / Buying a flat in Krakow; prices are still falling? [200]

I can quite believe it as we have been through a similar scenario ourselves recently.
I have no idea how the banks in Poland actually lend money but from our experience I would suggest it must styffle new business/ growth in Poland.

Rough figures for comparison, all in PLN for simplicity.
Deposit 1m
Loan/mortgage applied for 300k
Joint income 428k gross
Pension forcast in 7 years 170k+state pension 70k
So far 3 banks have turned us down, one has agreed but we have to have a Polish resident on the application.

Real Estate / Day of exchange of contracts with property sellers in Poland [12]

O.K. I have a plan to put forward to the vendors so lets see if you good people would be happy with it first.

We both share the same bank and branch in Poland, we know this as when we transfered the deposit it was handled by the bank cashier in front of all partys involved.The vendors were there just in case we had any problems.

How about I suggest we do exactly the same with the final payment.
We all meet at the house and check all is as it should be, drive into town and do all the paperwork in the notaries office then walk 200m to the bank and transfer the money, they hand us the keys and everyone should be happy.

OR is it possible to get a bankers draft from the bank, this is as good as cash anywhere?

Real Estate / Day of exchange of contracts with property sellers in Poland [12]

Thanks again, you all have the correct understanding of the situation.
I did email the agent and said if the sellers want to exchange at a later date to give them time to organise their life then it makes no odds to us.

The reply just now is whatever date we exchange and pay them the balance of money etc. they still want to stay in the property for at least 2 further weeks, this is what is concerning me and in my experience has never happened previously.

In my mind that could give them 2 weeks to empty OUR property, trash it or whatever and leaves us with the problems to resolve. It also means I have to make an extra trip to make sure the house is as it should be when they do leave.

We are not intending to live in this house full time untill we retire, maybe I should have made that clearer to you earlier, everyone else involved is aware of it.

Law / Which bank in Poland offers the best interest for savings in Euro? [13]

I can't answer your question fully but ING bank give us 3.5% on our savings account, the money is also available to us immediately.

Real Estate / Day of exchange of contracts with property sellers in Poland [12]

Thanks for your replies so far.
Grzegorz to answer your points;
when the final transfer is done in the notaries office i.e. money exchanged and any taxes due are payed is when we would like to take poccession of the property, not several weeks later, does this seem unreasonable to you?

We have purchased appartments in 2 other European places as well as houses twice in England. On each occasion the transfer of funds was completed either electronically or with a bankers draft in either the notaire or solicitors office, this is when we have exchanged keys etc. It is quite usual in the UK for the sellers to have a removals van booked and loaded with their goods, as soon as the contracts etc are signed and exchanged the property is now ours. In Spain they had emptied their belongings beforehand, in France they took what they wanted and left us the rubbish to dispose off!

Before anyone thinks we are some kind of property moguls nothing could be further from the truth. We have both worked hard and chose to buy property where we liked to visit, they are for our own personal use.

Law / Polish Citizenship for a foreigner whose parents was born in Poland [174]

'you will need to have YOUR birth registered in Poland as well as your parents marriage if your mother isn't Polish'

My wife needed neither of the above, perhaps it depends on where you apply or your current address.

Law / Ways of getting Permanent residency in Poland [101]

My wife was finally granted her Polish citizenship recently.......no exams were taken or asked for.

Travel / House hunting in Poland (something didn't feel right) [16]

Thankyou.
My wife thinks everything is OK. I have a niggling doubt so would like to double check the number he has given actually belongs to him.

Travel / House hunting in Poland (something didn't feel right) [16]

Thanks we are looking forward as well.

On a slightly different subject.....how do you actually know you are dealing with a legal notary and not just an estate agent or indeed can an estate agent do the legal paperwork correctly?

Travel / House hunting in Poland (something didn't feel right) [16]


What nonsence, where have I said we were at the 'notary public'.
We were at the agents office, if they wanted they could have taken the c.card (as one of their own agents suggested to us) and when the funds had cleared we could have proceeded.

Who in their right minds walks about with £20k in cash in their pocket, nothing to do with us being 'ripped off', just a gut feeling something wasnt quite right.

Anyway we have finally found a property we like, payed a sizable deposit and within 2 months hope to sign the final paperwork. All these transactions have been accepted using bank transfers, according to your belief they aren't allowed either..cleared funds you see.

Law / Opening a Polish Bank Account by a foreigner in Poland. Recommendations. [299]

Thanks-that is what I was going to do but I was just interested in the SEPA transfers mentioned above, anything that saves a few bob doesn't hurt eh!

Law / Opening a Polish Bank Account by a foreigner in Poland. Recommendations. [299]

"SEPA transfers. You can get very close to the interbank rate when exchanging PLN for EUR (you won't with GBP), and likewise when transferring EUR to GBP. It's much harder to get good deals on PLN/GBP transfers, at least in my experience."

Thanks for the explanation. I have just tried via the internet to do a couple of mock transfers as you suggested, aside from any transfer charges there wasn't much difference which surprised me TBH. Its the bank charges that would concern me especiallly as neither country actually has Euros as its currency, also like you suggested you need to perhaps do this in person rather than via internet banking.

We have PLN and GBP accounts with ING Bank Poland and over the next 6-8 weeks need to transfer about £200k into PLN. Any suggestions would be welcome.

The bank give rediculous exchange rates so we normally take money from our Polish GBP account and pop down the road to the kantor and return 10 minutes later with a fistfull of Zloty, the biggest pain is we can only take out £10k at a time and they also require 24 hours notice per transaction.

Law / Opening a Polish Bank Account by a foreigner in Poland. Recommendations. [299]

I cant grasp the idea of opening the Euro account, anywhere.
Presumably you will be paid in Zloty in Poland but need Sterling for the UK, where do the Euros come into play?

Real Estate / Kodeksu cywilnego Umowa najmu for tenants in Poland and laws governing tenancy agreements [16]

I would not enter into a contract as written above. It would appear the landlord/ agent are making the tennants pay for the upkeep of their property at your expense!

2. The first 300zl of the repair cost of any supplied item (washing machine, cooker, window blinds) is payable by the tenant
This is quite common in the UK ..........but the cost is fully refundable, it is to stop tennants phoning the agent/ landlord every time there is a minor problem i.e. dripping tap.

5. The tenant is to leave the flat in same condition as found at the end of the tenancy period, with no allowance for fair wear & tear

The last part about fair wear and tear would not stand up in a court of law in the UK.

Remember just beacause it is written into a contract and signed by you does not make it legal, unfair terms and conditions would be thrown out in a magistrates court here.

4. Landlord has the right to inspect the property every 3 months
Standard contract here but rarely invoked. Landlord must give 48 hours notice before entering or they are breaking the law.

UK, Ireland / Applying for a social housing in the UK - translation of a birth certificate? [2]

If the local authority have asked for your documents to be translated into English then thats what they want, doesn't seem unreasonable to me as in this country we speak, read and write English as our first language.

We had similar issues when we needed our documents translated from English to Polish. The embassy in London suggested a firm that could help us, we were quoted £200 + VAT per document, copies were a further £30 each from them, 6-8 weeks delivery time!

As it is we had it all done in Poland the following week, total cost for sworn translation, stamped and Notarised for 6 documents with 3 copies of each = 160zl

I have had a quick search and found this company that might be of use to you, I have no idea how legitimate they are.

languagewarehouse.co.uk

Life / Polish vs British vs American - Clash of cultures [390]

And most importantly - why would humans even try to eat something that doesn't look like edible in the first place? ;)

It is hopefully a deterent for inquisitive children, adults should know better.

Life / Polish vs British vs American - Clash of cultures [390]

Rats are not highest on my list of experience but..........you are both about right.

Rats do not 'see' quite the same as us humans colourwise nor is their eyesight anywhere near as advanced, they search or hunt for food more by smell and the use of their 'whiskers'.

The reason the rat poison is dyed blue here in the UK is because as Pawian wrote 'Blue isn`t typical colour of food' therefore it is meant as a warning signal for us humans not to eat it,Poland believe their colour is more suitable as a warning.

Why choose these colours at all? because it is in the spectrum of colour that rats can see i.e. red, green and blue so poor old ratty hopefully gets his/her demise.

Travel / House hunting in Poland (something didn't feel right) [16]

We usually go to Poland for either 8 days or 16 days, if on the shorter breaks we tend to fly into Katowice and stay for the weekend at our favourite hotel there or for the longer breaks we fly into Krakow and stay in the city for about 4-5 days before moving onto the Rybnik area.

When in Rybnik we stay in the town square hotel for a few nights, they know us by name now and we allways have a great time, just around the corner is one of our favourite Italian retsaurants. We have noticed the service has gone downhill over the years but the food is still excellent.

We have searched the internet for properties before coming over just so we can let the agents know what we like and dont want, as with most things the pictures do not tell the whole story.

There are 3 agents in Rybnik itself that we know off-each has been of no use whatsoever so far. I wont name names as its unfair.

One agent agreed to meet us at a certain time and day to gain acess to a property-we flew over especially as the house looked just what we wanted (over the internet). after waiting for them for over an hour we finally managed to get them on the phone only to be told 'i am busy today, we can try again tomorrow'. The next morning we were flying home early so that wasted our time, how unprofessional.

Agent 2.
We met in their office in the town as agreed. we had previously sent them a list of properties that we wanted further information on as they looked as if they were viable. We were expecting to have a few viewings lined up but they had other ideas, they wanted us to buy some apartments they owned instead.

I reiterated that we had come out especially to view certain properties or if they felt something else might suit we were prepared to listen, what we didn't ask for at any time was a flat.!

They asked us to come back the next day at 9am and they would in the meantime search for what we had asked for in the first place.

We arrived the next day at the agreed time, they had prepared a list of houses this time for us to view on the computer screen. Not one of our prefered choices was in their list.

We discounted certain houses as not suitable but found 2 that would be worth looking at.
We were told that we would have to come back the following day and they would show us around the houses chosen, why they couldn't arrange it for that day they wouldn't answer.

We duly arrived at 9am the next day only to be told they had not made any appointments for viewing yet but we should look at their own appartments once again.

I am sorry to say that I was seriously pixxed off now and made it known to them. They offered to make things right but we would have to wait another day for them to actually make appointments.

We decided to give them one last chance so arranged to meet again the next morning.
Yep you've guessed it, 9am next day they still hadn't made any appointments. We left making it known how absolutely bloody useless they were.

During the days we started making inroads into getting paperwork in order, bank account s opened, residency permits stamped etc..
We were frequent visitors to Rybnik City Hall (just a few steps from the estate agent). As our Polish is very limited they found someone who spoke perfect English, we were asked that any time we wanted help to ask for this man. What struck us was how very friendly the staff were to us both. Whenever we walked into the reception area they recognised us and phoned for 'our man; to come down and deal with whatever needed doing. We made him aware of our ongoing frustrations with the agent and he offered to walk with us to their offices to try and find out what was going on, now that is above anyones call of duty. We declined his offer but he gave us his own personal mobile number and said he would find another estate agent for us and would help in any way he could.

Stephen-you were an absolute star and we WILL take you to dinner or lunch on our next visit, no excuses from you next time.

Travel / House hunting in Poland (something didn't feel right) [16]

Pip-this was some 10 years ago, I think it would have been an excellent purchase as the buiding was near completeion.

I was just adding to these posts until we get up to the current time, adding the frustrations we have had previously with agents and developers alike.

Travel / House hunting in Poland (something didn't feel right) [16]

No questions yet, rest assured there will be at some stage.