Poland residency permit / registration questions.

Hi,
I'm sure these questions are answered somewhere, but this whole subject seems to be a minefield. I have questions about residency and registration.

1. Is it right that I can only register if my landlady gives permission for that address?
2. If she does not give permission, can I register at an address other than that at which I live?
3. A friend of mine has her permit but has moved flats, does she now have to change the address on her registration? What is the penalty is she does not?

4. My partner's landlady is refusing to let her register at her flat, can she register at my flat even if she doesn't live with me?

I've heard the process in my area is quite painless, so, I'll keep my thumbs and try.

T

Are you an EU citizen? Because that makes a world of difference.

I am, neither of my friends are.

T

Okay, this might not be entirely accurate as the rules seem to change daily, but..here goes.

1) Yup. The owners of the place must give permission for you to reside there, and depending on the local authority, they might demand that all the owners turn up IN PERSON (yes, I don't understand this at all).

2) Yup, again. The concept of registration is that the goverment has an address to contact you at - to serve official papers/etc. This can be any address you want - it doesn't have to be the place where you reside.

3) No idea about the penalty, but it might not be the smartest move to move house and not have access to the old address. There's probably no way of checking, and once the new registration process comes in (that's been promised by Tusk, and was supposed to be implemented at the start of the year!) - but generally speaking, you want to make sure that you can collect mail from that address.

4) Yup - no problem. Again, it doesn't really matter where you're registered. Many people are actually registered at a different address to the place where they live - for example, students will live elsewhere, yet might be registered at an address in their hometown 500km away. The refusal for landlords to let people get registered is one big reason why the system needs reformed - it's a ridiculous situation.

It should be noted that as EU, there is next to no way of checking if you're complying with the rules or not. Many ports of entry to Schengen don't bother scanning passports, nor are stamps given to EU passport holders - so while the law might be that you should be registered within x time - there's really no way of checking. Non-EU is different though, as they'll have visa issues.

However - and you probably know this already. Not being registered means that you can't pay taxes or in fact do anything official with the state. This, again isn't a big deal if you're EU because you can just claim to be visiting - but I wouldn't risk it if I was non-EU. The possibility of getting deported from the Schengen area isn't insignificant, and I've heard stories about Americans falling foul of the 90 day rule - and subsequently getting banned from the entire area.

Wow, that's a big post. Thank you so much, it's very useful.

I'll visit the local office and get the paperwork and see if my partner can register at my address. Maybe they'll have the new system in place and make things easier.

You're right about the EU thing, I can just claim to have stepped over the border to Germany and the 90 days starts again. In the meantime, I have my stamp from the Ukraine border on Sunday so that gives me another 90 days.

As for the not paying tax thing, the last school I worked for took tax from my salary, even though I had no NIP and no registration, so how does that work?

Thanks again for all the advice

Tony

That's a great post but the above isn't quite accurate. The only thing I found you can't do without a registered address is register a car in your name, but I've managed to do everything else (include paying taxes!).

Registering a car is something I'm going to need soon, which is the main reason I'm registering and my partner needs it so she can travel in the Schengen zone :)

I turned up in person to give myself permission to live at the flat I own. The office jockeys wouldn't let me give myself permission because, even though they knew that I own the flat (because the local property tax bills are sent to me), I hadn't brought the notarial deed proving that I had bought the flat legally.


There isn't one. I was told that by the office jockeys who refused to let me register myself when I asked them if I would be fined for not having a maldunek.


Either get in touch with the local tax office and ask them if they've received any money for your taxes (probably a bad idea) or ask the school for the relevant paperwork showing they actually did pay the tax office the money that they deducted (it's not exactly unheard of for schools to deduct money for tax and then just pocket the cash themselves).

I have a sponsor and they applied for residence permit for me.

I didn't send them any address in Poland as I haven't been there yet, I don't really have an address. Also sponsor company know the situtation and they didn't ask for that ?

Is address a required information ? Is it possible that I live trouble because of it ?

Aha, this is the common misconception. It used to be 90 days on a stamp (or a wave of the passport if you're EU) - but now, it's any 90 days in 180 days throughout the *whole* Schengen area. Therefore, border runs are now pointless.

Obviously, if you're EU, then it's no issue because there's no systematic record kept of entries/exits outside of stamps in passports. But non-EU have had a torrid time since Schengen because of the 90/180 rule.

Incidentally, did you get a stamp from Poland at all when you went to Ukraine?


Just goes to show how utterly redundant and pointless the system is - I can understand having a registered address, as it's actually a great idea having one official address with the State. But to make it so tedious and irritating to actually do so just means people won't bother.


Good question. They more than likely pocketed it - which is more than enough reason to demand proof that they actually paid it. If they're not forthcoming with it, just remind them that you can happily show the taxman your contract.

When I was supposed to go and apply for a NIP, they were very insistant that I must not show my contract or mention about my type of work with the school. Dodgy as hell!

I only had a contract in English, they were not happy when I demanded a version in Polish after pointing out the English version is not legal in Poland, which I signed but was never returned signed from head office.

The whole TEFL world seems dodgy as hell.

Almost a good guarantee then that they've been scamming the tax out of you. Just threaten them very bluntly - either they return the tax money to you, or you go to the government office to talk about it. If they've been pocketing the money (do you have a payslip at all?) for taxes - then they'll probably pay up to avoid the consequence of you telling all.


How utterly dodgy. But again, probably a good reason to use the contract as an excuse too - if they don't play ball with your tax money, then remind them gently that you can inform the relevant labour authorities too about their work practices.


Not the whole world, but many schools are definitely built on funny practices. I'm not even sure why - the money is so much that they don't have to be dodgy, yet it still goes on.

The only good schools I've seen are run by British natives who are teachers themselves.
When I mean good, I mean those who appear good to the staff.

To be honest, there's nothing I want more than to go and work for International House in Krakow, but, they simply don't pay enough to live on :(

I enjoyed my teacher training there and I'm sure I would enjoy working for them with the constant supervision of the teacher trainers to help me grow.

Teaching is in my heart but IT is in my wallet. An awful situation.

T

This seems to be unfortunately true. I'm lucky, the boss of my school is 27 and thinks like a young person in respect to things - we're given complete freedom, the only 'rule' as such is that we have to justify what we do. He does sometimes question us as to what we're teaching - but it's more out of curiosity and interest in the person than any sort of interrogation session. Nicely, he always feeds back to us what people are saying about us - so we can tailor our approach for each class.

I actually handed in a CV to one Brit-ran school in Poznan. To say 'miserable git' would be an understatement - he was so unbelievably sour faced, even before he saw the CV. I was too stunned at his attitude to say much - but with an attitude like that, he'll be out of business before long.

The worst schools to me seem to be the ones ran by people who were teachers themselves, but who aren't native - particularly the ones where they're only running the school but aren't owning it. They seem to have a dreadful, money first approach to teaching - which seems to include lying to people as standard.

The lack of professionalism in many language schools astounds me though. One other example was a rather big school in Sw. Marcin in Poznan. I walked in, said 'hello' and got met with a stony faced receptionist. Do they not realise that I could be there to talk about getting lessons for a large company?

Could well be that the work you were contracted to do was not the type which qualifies for the tax rate and employment structure they had you on. If you teach (but do not have your own company), you must be an employee (which means you pay more tax and the employer must shell out for part of your ZUS). But if you are paid for the lesson plans you produce, you can be on a different type of contract (which means less tax and no ZUS).


You're wrong. A contract in Poland can be concluded in any language that the parties thereto agree. However, if it is concluded in Polish and another language, the Polish version prevails unless the parties agree otherwise.


God no! The worst schools I've worked at were the ones where the owner was a former teacher (from years back) and then became the manager. The kind of manager who thinks that she (and it is almost always she) can do anything she wants because it is her school. Best one was the bitch who fired me for insisting that I got paid the amount stated in my contract (she said that there was a mistake in the contract, I pointed out that she'd signed it) and tried to back date the firing by putting a date on the letter which was 29 days before the postmark. I got one of my students (a lawyer) to write her a letter pointing out that under Polish law only the postmark matters.

Harry,

Yes, I was on an o dzielo, dodgy as hell and no ZUS.

once again, more stories about bad schools, make me want to open my own and get it right :) Need a few more years teaching experience first though.

T

hi, guys. i ve seen yur discussion about registration and i would like to clear in my case for exemple. i am not EU, and a come to live with my husband that is polish. i need a residence permit visa and i need the registration that we can get from his mum, but the problem is that we actually are living in another city where he is working...

i believe the ur landlor wont give us the registration.
do you know what could we do?

Absolutely nothing to stop you going through the process where your husband's mother lives. :)

Merged thread:
*Urgent* UK national - need residency permit in Poland

Hi there.

A little bit of information:

I am a British national from England. I'm currently a student with the OpenUniversity, and on october 5th flew here to Poznań to live with my [polish] partner in her flat which she bought/owns. I knew that in order to get permit here to stay, I had to be registered to an address here but it took some time for my partner to receive the necessary documents for her own registration (from her home-town) to the flat.

Last thursday we went to ' urzad miasta'' and I now have my 'potwierdzenie zameldowania cudzoziemca na pobyt czasowy' (I am registered to the flat here in Poznań) which expires on the 04-01-2011.

I am also aware that we have a maximum stay of 3 months before I get told to go back to england, unless I obtain some sort of permit, correct?

On the same day we went to 'urzad wojewodzki' to see about this card, but there was very little information on the kind of things we need there, and no other english people were hanging about it was all people from outside the EEA. We are both very confused as to which form to fill in, which documents we need, where we have to take them, and any costs / processing times.

I would really appreciate some advice (preferably with citations) and quite soon as we intend to get this sorted on monday.

Best regards,
Jay

You dont need a permit to stay. You're an EU national.


Nope, as an EU national you can stay for as long as you like.

It's the EU people, no need to register unless you are planning to work.

"As an EU Citizen, you are entitled to stay freely in Poland for up to 3 months. If you plan on staying longer than this or working, you must apply for a residence card (Karta pobytu obywatela UE). This can be obtained from your local council offices in the town/village you live in."

Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Citizens of EU traveling ot Poland
Legalization of Stay - Instructions to EU Members

Merged: Permit perplexity - I have a degree from a Polish university. Paperwork in Poland?

Has anyone else read over this?

malopolska.uw.gov.pl/default.aspx?page=Work_permit_for_foreigner_ work_ in_Poland

I'm non-EU, I have a degree from a Polish university, NIP, and I "perform work under international contracts and agreements to which the Republic of Poland is a party, in a kindergarten, school or institution, referred to in the provisions on the system of education, or in Voluntary Labour Corps".

What kind of paperwork am I actually obligated to do? At this point in the game, I've had it with bureaucracy and paperwork. If this says that I am "released from the obligation to have a work permit", can I assume that this is in fact the case? What about zameldowanie, residence permit, etc.??

Yes, you don't need work permit.


Any person living in Poland (including a foreigner) has to register his place of residence.


It's very important document, which gives many privileges. First you should get temporary residence permit if you don't have any, and if your stay in Poland will be longer than 3 months.