Law / Is there a legal requirement for us to support aging parents in Poland? [26]

Ok so the law states you have a responsibility to take care of your mother in the event of hardship but there are some get outs.

1. If you have been estranged from her for a long period you can claim in court no relationship and it will be upto the judge to decide. I wouldn't hold out much hope here as generally they will find in the parent's favour.

2. In order for the Polish court to make a decision on the amount you wish to pay, they must assess your income and they have no power to collect it in a foriegn country so you can basically just not send any details.

3. If you go down the I don't want to pay route though you will almost certainly forfiet any inheritance due if this is something you want it might be worth making a small payment .

4. The payment has to be shared equally between all siblings based on their ability to pay so if you have some rich brothers and sisters time to talk to them.

That's about it but basically they can't enforce this law in another country. So relax, Just don't move to Poland

Life / Work and Life in Krakow [11]

Ok so I am sure people will start to scream at you that you can't live off 2100 pln.

The fact is that you can, and many many people do but, don't expect a decent standard of living you will be budgeting every single day and you will have to watch your pennies hard.

If this is not the life you want then move on but I for 2 years from a similar amount and it didn't kill me.

Your choice

Life / Exam for Drivers License in Poland; English? [99]

All I did was a bit of googling for you in Polish so take this not as a recommendation only as what it is but maybe this will help

grupaimage.eu/p358/testy-abcdt-en-wersja-angielska.html

Real Estate / Buying building plot/land for building a house in Poland [5]

Ok so I would not say I am an expert but I have done this so heres is some quick and dirty advice.

You want to be looking for "działka budowlana" this is land which has permission in principle for it to have a hous on it normally it will have some restrictions to it but generally these are flexible. My plot were things like uptp 13m tall max for a house with a roof pitch of 45 degrees and other things but I submitted plans with a roof angle of 50 degrees and it was approved.

Then you want to look at what this land has Electricity, Water, Drainage, Gas etc. Do not believe any seller who promises you that there will be these things we made that mistake and 8 years on we are still waiting for the 2 months time we were promised. If you don't have have these things you can still build a house but facotr in about 30000 for water and drainage. Electricity is a must I think.

The next stage is to get a project you can buy them online and thats cheeper than getting one drawn I would look for someone to help you with the town hall process like an architect the submitting of the papers and planning permission takes about 3 months all told and about 4000 pln for the person to help you.

Then comes the fantastic process of looking for a reliable building company good luck with that one!

There are loads more things to consider.

All depend on the region etc etc

where abouts are you looking to build?

Genealogy / Surname in the village - visiting the place in Poland where my father was born [4]

The best way is to contact the local Parish church if your family was catholic who may help you other than that if it is a village, the best way I have found is turn up in a strange car they havn't seen before and eventually some nosey villager will talk to you. You will have to speak a bit of Polish mind, but having done this myself I ended up in multiple peoples houses for coffee and cake just because a bloke speaking polish with a funny accent interested them.

Other than that post the name of the village I am sure if somebody on here lives near there they will help you out.

Law / UK Citizen - Getting Poland's temporary residence prior to Brexit [10]

This looks like an old one now I hope you sorted it. But if you havn't I think you have been given bum advice the two conditions are for a non eu citizen. just pop down to your local regional government office with your passport and it should be very straight forwar. Good luck

If not marry your girlfriend this simplifies things plus Polish wives are the best :)

Law / UK Citizen - Getting Poland's temporary residence prior to Brexit [10]

Ok so if I was wrong I apologise I didn't have to show any of that stuff although I was married at the time maybe this was the difference. i would get health insurance anyway its a good idea. In terms of how much is enough to prove you can support yourself let say minmum wage is 2250 gross so 1650 net if you are employed so 12 months 19800 lets say 4000 english money. In real lif though tripple this

Good luck sorting it out. Man you choose the wrong time to come to poland the winter is the worst here. City or Country??

Life / Amazon Alexa/Google Nest in Poland [10]

Hey I have a google home and nest it works just fine although when I set it up I do remmebr it didn't do much i.e had hardly any features then I chatted online with google and they got me to set it up and pretend I was in the USA some how now it works perfectly. I think now you can even speak to it in Polish,

Work / Is starting a language school doable in Poland [9]

Hey I Teach English as a native about 30km from Tuchola. So let me give you the lay of the land, Tuchola is a bit small for a school, I think so you would be looking at Chojnice there are 5 or 6 schools there, but no Natives. There used to be 3 including me, but now only me. I looked into starting a school myself but for any kind of decent school you will be looking at over 2500 per month in rent of a business location, on top of that Zus Bills etc and I found that when I did the sums, the numbers of students I would need would be very challenging to achieve. The real money "sort of" is in Business English which has ups, i.e higher per hour rate and downs i.e this has to be fully legal so look forward to that wonderfull 1200 pln per month ZUS payment. You can survive but to give you and indication of income for the first two years I struggled to hit 3500 per month which is almost starvation, but now can just about hit the 4500k mark but you will never be rich trust me if you need more info PM me.

Work / Is starting a language school doable in Poland [9]

The real problem is the maths here let me walk you through my calculations, I am happy to be corrected here. Minimum cost: Rental of a school e.g otodom.pl/oferta/lokal-biurowy-w-scislym-centrum-chojnic-ID3Lcq0.html#ea2d91a38f

Rent 2000
Bills 1000 (heat light insurance Property tax etc I think this is on the low end)
Zus 1500 (I know you start lower but lets take the figure after the discount period)

Total outlay 4500

Ok so now look at possible earnings

The major money is always from Kids but kids have restricted hours I know there are Adults that don't conform to these hours but they will be supplementary income not the core of your business.

Teaching hours 15:30- 18:30. These seem to be the hours you can teach, due to the fact that the kids need drivers as Polish children don't walk anywhere especially not alone. Standard office hours are 7:00- 15:00 and later than 18:30 they can't focus. Also the School year is not 52 week and children will not come in school holiday times. They have 2 weeks for Christmas, 2 weeks for winter holiday, 1 week at Easter and 9 weeks in the summer plus various national holidays etc etc so lets say 15 weeks.

So 37 operating weeks. Cost per week = 4500 x 12 dived by 37 weeks which equals 1459 pln weekly. This business premises has 3 rooms so 1459 divided by 3 equals 486pln per room per week. Possible teaching hours 15 per week so the room has to generate you 32 pln per hour to make it worth it. This is at 100 percent capacity. So lets look at earnings per hour

Individual

Going rate for 121 English (polish teacher) Native will earn more but you are talking about a business so you will not be able to teach more.

Market rate is 75 pln per hour
Cost of teacher 50 pln

Plus you will have to pay tax or zus etc so 121's are a waste of time

Group

Group of 5

Going rate 25 pln per member 125 payment per hour minus 50 for teacher minus 32 room cost 43 pln for a group

Ok so worth it
Lets say you focus on groups. To hit this 4500 payment

You would need 104 hours per week of groups which means attracting over 500 students in your first year not unachievable but very very challenging.

Bear in mind I am using here best case. There are loads more costs receptionist materials IT equipment etc. I am happy to be corrected but this is how I see the situation.

UK, Ireland / Buying a Polish vehicle in the UK [28]

Hey there,

I have bought a Polish car in the UK but it depends on what your intentions are. I was able to do this as I was then going to travel to Poland and in Poland I registered it to my name at my Polish address. I since discovered though I drove the 1500 km on the old OC and if I had had an accident I am pretty sure I wouldn't have been covered as the OC stays with the car I think is just a myth. So it depend on your future intentions but I would say to do it completely above board would be difficult

Real Estate / Buy Land in Poland and Build a House from Wood [6]

Ok I have done this so here is my advice for what it is worth and I will tell you the mistakes I made to try and help you to avoid what I did.

First you need land. You need it to be building land but this means it will be quite difficult to get something in the middle of no-where, but going the agricultural route I think will just end in tears. We had the opportunity to go this using free land from my wife's parents and in the end, it was just impossible but the compromise you will have to make is a plot will not be singular and you will probably end up with neighbours.

There are lots of plots and the more rural ones will be sold without very important things like electricity, water or access to communal drainage. We bought one without water or drains but you have to factor into the cost the initial investment plus on-going upkeep.

A well will cost around 200 pln per metre you will need to dig down to get water and to get anything like decent drinkable quality you are looking at 30 meters plus. Mine went far deeper than this so do the math if the land has no water. Then comes drainage most town planning officers are only giving permission at the moment for sealed systems which means when it is full you will need them to come and pump it out and until they do, no going to toilet. Mine which is around 8000 litres lasts just over a month and costs 200 pln to pump and you have to monitor your waste water carefully and factor in for a broken government tractor for 3 days when you order the pumping trust me it is a nightmare.

Also, road access again my plot I thought it was wonderful having to drive 2 km through the forest to get to my wooden house but then the winter arrives. When we moved in, we had 2 normal cars after the first winter bye bye normal cars 1 4 x 4 normal car and one 4x4 all-terrain with the full tyre setup were required so factor this in as they are way more expensive to run and maintain.

So now we come to the wooden house bit. You have 3 options a first a big company with full factory facilities who will basically turn up with a ready-made house and put it together on your land. 2 medium sized company who will make your house from pieces. 3. A local one-man band who will make your house himself.

So, option 1

This is the best option but will be the most expensive about 30 percent more when I looked into it but will give you guarantees etc and will have good quality control and be professional. (I didn't take this option) I would recommend Sendom

Option 2

This was the one I went with my first place, Big mistake! One of the biggest problems in Poland at the moment is getting decent workers and the medium sized companies struggle the most with this. They end up scrapping the bottom of the barrel so the people that built my house were basically constantly drunk and sometimes didn't work because they hadn't finished partying nightmare. Also, medium size businesses have money issues and the guy who built our house 3 months later went bankrupt leaving 3 houses not finished, so no guarantee what so ever.

Option 3
We built after our house a building where we have an Airbnb business and we thought let's get a local guy who is recommended and will not be drunk or bankrupt and will take care to build our house well. So, here are problems too we live 3 hour's drive from Germany which means that all decent tradesman disappears often to Germany where they can earn3 times the money they can here. So, our guy although good and not a drunk did disappear 4 times for 3 weeks to make money in Germany without even a phone call to let us know very frustrating when the roof is not on and it's raining buckets.

So wooden houses things to know

They are warm but move for the first 4 years so look out for cracks that will let drafts in ruining your warm cosy house.

You have to paint them with paint that will cost you more than your car. We have to paint our house once every 2 years on the sunny side and once every 5 years on the other side. The paint costs 2000 pln for 25 litres and 50 is needed to do the painting plus your time and you will have to buy scaffolding or pay someone to paint it.

Your insurance will cost you 4 times as much. Our house is 150 metres square a concrete house you could probably insure for around 500 pln, ours 2200 but when a wood house burns it all goes so don't skimp here.

Don't skimp on windows and doors spend as much as you possibly can in this area as this will come back in any heating bills.

Wood moves so tiles in the first couple of years are a bad idea as they will crack as the house moves and they don't.

Ok so above are all the reasons not to do what you want to do, but the dreams of a wooden house next to forest are strong. If I did it again, I would still do wood but with allot of changes.

If you need any specific advice let me know

UK, Ireland / Buying a Polish vehicle in the UK [28]

Ok so you will basically be in the same situation as I was. I bought a Polish registered car and then drove it to Poland and registered it there. I have now lived here for 5 years and I have discovered that the myth of OC (insurance) staying with the car is just a myth. Some things to know

1. You have 30 days from purchase to register the car all car purchases are done with a standard document with a date on it so be careful as if you don't register this car within the 30 days you will not be able to without redoing the paperwork.

2. The OC is supposed to stay with the car but in reality it doesn't you are required to register that you are the new owner with the existing insurance and you will always be charged a premium for change of ownership. This also cannot be done without a PESEL (Polish version of an NI number ) so if you haven't got one of these no chance here.

3. As I said before I drove to Poland on the old OC but if I had a crash I am sure that this would have been a living nightmare I believe the law says you can drive on the old OC whilst awaiting registration of the car in your name but this is designed for people who will drive their new car home in Poland and the next day go to the town hall and register it. So a crash would be a nightmare.

4. Also be careful who you buy from many polish owners get parking tickets and fines and think that they can just ignore it I heard a story of a guy buying a polish car and getting stopped at the border because of 2000 pounds worth of parking tickets or fines and ultimately loosing the car even though they had just bought it.

5. I get that the only way to get here now practically and safely is by car but better off doing this in an English car to be legal. you can register an English car here now if you don't mind the steering wheel being on the wrong side of the car which I don't recommend.

It all depends on your budget etc etc but One option could be an English Landrover freelander which can have the steering wheel swapped to LHD relatively inexpensively here.

Love / Recommendations for live wedding bands in different cities in Poland. [36]

jurekband .pl based in gdansk

Travel / Driving from UK to Poland [9]

Having done this numerous times I would not recommend it. Once you do the math a flight and a budget rental car are way cheaper. The only reason we did it was we had a dog and needed to bring him with us. You can do it in one go depending on which part of Poland you are travelling to but it is dangerous. The advice I would give is to get a ferry early in the morning or at night and try to catch a couple of hours shut eye on it we always did the Dover-Dunkirk route for this reason. Also, you want to be disembarking early in the morning so the majority of the journey is in the daylight as driving at night after a 24hr stint at the wheel is asking for trouble. The really is nothing so interesting on route to see, perhaps Berlin is a good stop off as you have broken the back of most of the journey and hotels are plentiful. I went from London to Czluchow, I did it in a 2007 Mazda mx5 2 litre which took 2 tanks and also a Mercedes 2009 2.2 diesel which took 2 tanks a Renault Megane 1.6 diesel 1.25 tanks a vw passat 2015 2.0 diesel which took 1.5 tanks of fuel. It is a straight run not complicated expect traffic around Antwerp and Berlin and be aware of scammers on this route they will flag you down to and say something is wrong with your car then rob you so only stop at a petrol garage with CCTV.