News / Polish PM Tusk- dictator or not? What Poles think? [421]

I hate him because after paying taxes in Poland for 4.5 years I still cant vote him out. And he smiles like Tony Blair.

Life / Brazilian moving to Gdansk and need some help with finding a flat to rent and also a good school for daughters [33]

Hi,

Welcome to Poland, im English and have been here 5 years. Here are a few tips for you.

Apartments

If you rent an apartment look for apartments ads placed on trojmiasto.pl or allegro.pl avoid using estate agents as they will charge you a months rent for doing sod all.

Beware that there is no deposit protection for tenants and a few Brits I know have never received their deposit back. Polish courts are incredibly slow and if you are non Pole don't bother trying to get it back the legal way.

Remember to ask your landlord to take you to to get registered at the address. Only the property owner can do this and most poles are reluctant to do it because once you are registered it is harder to get you out and also they don't want the tax office knowing that they are earning from the property. If he wont register you then you can take a copy of the lease to the office and write a declaration saying that you are renting and the landlord wont register you.

When you rent in Poland bills are included in the cost at a rate that the landlord thinks you may use. This isn't 100% as you may have to over pay when the landlord receives his bills from the utility companies. Make sure that you get a copy of all bills he receives from him.

Living Costs

Approx.. Rent 1500-2000zl (incl bills), Bus/rail pass monthly 100zl. Beer should never be more then 7-10zl.

The rest can be frittered on parties in Sopot and meals in milk bars (cheap cafes serving polish staples for about 2 quid a meal).

Polish Courses

Unless you have a degree in English and are 100% up with Grammar don't bother booking into a course. I went to a course in Wrzescz (in gdansk) for 11 weeks, twice a week, traveling from Gdynia and after 22 lessons i couldnt order a beer in a pub. Complete waste of time.

Polish has to be learnt speaking to Poles, getting simple phrase books and learning a sentence at a time.

Good luck.