Can a tenant change locks to house without giving access to the landlord

My tenant has put a digital lock in my house and when I ask him to give me access to digital lock, he is stating as per polish has the landlord does not have rights to property while tenant is renting. I just dont get this, how come the owner does not have access to his own property. I did tell him that I will not enter the house without his content, but he is insisting that as per Polish law a tenant can change the locks and give no access to the landlord

With permission, since it's their home.

Having said that, I've never heard of a tenant changing locks and this is suspicious. Perhaps something illegal is happening there. I rent a flat to someone and it would be a red flag if they did that.

I did allow him to change the lock to digital lock, but when I asked him to provide me access to the digital lock he refused stating as per Polish law landlord does not right to access. This is very strange as he is renting the house for 6 months and when the lock was convention I had spare key and he was aware of it. Now he is refusing.

I'd have a look on one of those legal forums. There's a good one where law students and lawyers give advice (it's practice for the students and there are also actual lawyers there). It's in Polish, though I'd bet that many/most of the people on it speak English.


Yes, it is very strange. What if there was a burst pipe or other emergency.

Is the house in an out of the way place? Maybe I'm overthinking it, but could he be growing something or doing something else dodgy? What's your general impression of him?

Can you please share link to the forum. I think he is generally good. Dont think he is dangerous, but no one can guess. He has a public profile which is consistent with whatever little i know hinm

Burst pipes and blaring fire alarms aside, I would absolutely hate to know that at any moment my landlord may come in. Kind of sympathize with this fella.

Knowing how nosy Poles are, I would be doubly uncomfortable.

There's probably a dozen of them. I'd have a look at them and see which is most useful. If you put " forum radcy prawnego " into Google, it will bring them up.

According to Polish lame law some of your rights as a property owner get restricted when you're renting your place to someone. You can't change the locks without the tenant's permission, for example, even if he stops paying the rent.

I don't know if he has to give you access to digital lock. I only know that a tenant has to give you access to your place in emergency situations and, I think, in case of suspected damage.

Next time put it into the rental contract that locks can be changed only if you agree to it and then don't agree.

I just hope he's not one of those people that will stop paying the rent and won't move out.


I can understand that too, but with Polish law concerning landlord vs tenant rights I'd be already fairly worried in Marcin Woj's case...

Abolish landlords.
Access to resources should be awarded for work, initiative, and contribution. Landlords gets paid money, because they own stuff. As in, they are paid money, because they already have money. That's their "merit", they get paid today for having been paid yesterday.

Money shouldn't make money. People make money, machines make money, the earth makes money, but money doesn't make money. This is a scam.

Nonsense. My parents inherited my city grandmother's flat after her death and we moved there and so my parents rented our old one-room flat to two students. At some point when my brother got old enough to move out, he went to live in our old flat. So, in the meantime, before my brother moved out, we were getting some extra money from renting, which was a good thing, because we weren't rich. Flats and houses in Poland usually stay in the family - they get inherited sooner or later.


Would you like to abolish family too? lol

That is a fringe case and it can be acceptable.
I am talking about landlord owning 50 or even 500 flats and continuing to buy a new ones, saturating the new house market. Whoever is fine with a society that rewards so much for doing the little I do is either insane or stupid.

Landlords are LITERALLY paid for having money. They didn't build the building, often don't manage the building, rarely even visit the building in person. Most often they are paid for owning something that they didn't even buy, their ancestor bought it, or, as is the case with some agricultural landlords in Europe, they are paid because 200 years ago their ancestor stole it.

And the social cost we pay for landlords, who are always anti-reform, always retrograde and backwards in their social views, always against movement of labour, always against expanding housing (which undermines their asset value), often against reconstruction, expansion of infrastructure, etc, is immense.

Landlords are not productive, and are expensive, and we should abolish them.

@Korvinus, sorry, but how do you "abolish landlors" in a democratic, capitalist country? ;D Are you a communist? lol

Would you also like to "abolish" car rentals? ;D


So you'd like to abolish inheritance too? ;D

Or rich/business people in general? ;D

Once you buy something you can usually do more or less what you want with it - it's called private property. And a flat or a house is a commodity, just like anything else. You can buy it, sell it, use it or rent it to someone else, even if you didn't build it yourself. The fact that you didn't make a car, doesn't mean that you can't rent it to someone else for money lol 🤦

Abolishing 'buy to let' credit is certainly possible, as is restricting the number of homes a landlord can own. There can be landlords, however when landlordism is a significant part of any country's housing sector, there are obvious questions to be asked about the best use of capital and labour.

Capitalism and unrestricted capitalism aren't the same thing.

@jon357, I can understand some reasonable regulations, I suppose, I don't know, I'm not an expert on this, but Korvinus wrote that he wants to "abolish" it altogether and he didn't write how he imagines it happening in practical terms :)


Well, I guess that's not the case in Poland since 84% of people in Poland live in flats and houses owned by them and only 16% rent...

Let's start with with increased taxation for owning multiple flats/houses. The more homes one have, the bigger rate tax he pays.
And I think it should not hit people who inherited grandmother's one additional flat, so don't take it personally.

I guess it is, if 16% are renting from private landlords. 5% might be acceptable. This is an issue that the U.K. is trying to address at the moment. It started with a very small percentage and (as it is growing now in Poland) grew too high.

Poland had such a good system of spóldzienie mieszkaniowe too. Although a few certainly do build new blocks, it would be good if the overwhelming majority of new build flats were cooperatively managed.


Not at the moment, certainly, however in the long term it would be better for society if inherited flats were sold.

Why 5%?
You know, eliminating renting is simply not realistic. People move around these days, they have to be able to move where the jobs are or wherever they want to go, students have to be able to rent a place if they're studying in another city and not everyone can afford to buy a flat even once they decide to settle for good in some place.


Why? Flats and houses often pass from generation to generation in Poland - thanks to this people have a place to live without having to take credit to buy a flat. How people having a place to live is "bad" for the society?

Renting or landlordism?


If it's an ancient home, a culturally or architecturally significant one or a farm, why not?

A flat in a block, why?

What's the difference? The person you rent the flat from is called a "landlord", yes?

Btw, Polish 86.8% (2021) of ownership is very high. It gives Poland the 6th place in the EU:

ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/digpub/housing/bloc-1a.html

In Germany over 50 % of the population are tenants, in Austria 46 % and in Denmark 41 %.

In Switzerland 57.8% of people are tenants.

So, in case of those countries you can say that "landlordism is a significant part of the country's housing sector". In case of Poland - not really, especially if you compare it to the rest of the EU.


In order to... live there...? You think that flats for free fall from the sky in Poland...? lol

This is why ownership is so high in Poland, btw - because of families passing down flats and houses to next generations.

This is the key. Why private eating?


Of private landlords?


It isn't though, is it.

Landlordism isn't the same as renting, did you think it was?

Why not? Whom do you propose to rent from? From the state?


I'm guessing that yes... Who else? The state? Aliens?


Yes, jon357, I did. Sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about right now... Maybe it's because I'm not a native speaker of English - so, please, do explain what is it that you mean exactly...

It's mentioned above. Though there alternatives to cooperatives, including the people as a whole and also local government or Trade Unions (who were significant housing providers in pre-war Warsaw).


Probably not aliens, however the public sector and cooperatives are big there, no need for private 'investors'.


Probably better to read up on landlordism, a word used in English for a very long time. It refers to private individuals and groups of individual 'investors' making a profit from people's homes.

What and where?


This system still exists (my block of flats belongs to spółdzielnia), but flats built by them are a small percentage of the market. And I'm not sure what block of flats being "cooperatively managed" would change exactly...


So what are the stats? How many flats and houses are rented to people by "the public sector and cooperatives" and how many by private landlords or investors?

Oh my, what a nice picture of cultural misunderstanding.

So Jon, Paulina doesn't understand what you are saying because the market is so differentin Poland.

@Paulina- private renting market has quite significant drawbacks.

Pumping the prices, insecurity for families etc.

In UK unless at some point you get something from the council/housing association you have 2 choices: buy or have a private landlord.

Private landlords e.g. kick their tenants out if the rent in the area rises a lot ( like now) and look for new one so they can have the higher rent.

Family may be renting property for over 10 years and yet get 2 months to move out.
If you split with your partner many agencies ask you to reapply for the property and you may not get it if they think your financial status is at risk.

That's what it looks like, with a cheeky element of wanting to argue ;-)

One paradox is that pre-war Poland was very advanced in social ownership of housing, especially in Warsaw. And of course the spoldzenie during the PRL are something to be proud of.


I'm not sure when you moved there so forgive me if it was pre-2004 and you remember how things used to be before it all changed and know this already.

It started with Thatcher (who genuinely wanted to increase ownership), went via the John Major government not allowing councils to replace housing stock and progressed (if that's the right word) to the point where around half of the ex council housing/coal board stock has been bought up by private landlords. It used to be so easy to get a council house or flat and to buy privately with a mortgage (from a proper mutually-owned building society that didn't make profits like a bank) was easier too.

Since of course the working class aren't allowed to have nice things, buy-to-letters have wrecked the situation for everyone. I know Brits working in the Middle East who own rental flats in my home town and they've never even visited the region. Fortunately their low 'profit' margins and the current rising mortgage rates are about to rebound on them.


Ask a statistician. Or join an debating club.

No, I would argue the same points in Poland. But you see the British perspective and that's why we are here.

Personally, I don't think either place should have a significant part of the nation's housing stock owned by private for-profit landlords.

It's the same story throughout much of the Americas, certainly all across Western Europe, and likely most of Eastern Europe as well. There are many contributing factors (this is by no means an exhaustive list):

population (since 1950, world population has more than tripled; US and Europe population has more than doubled)
globalist megacorporations and billionaires hoarding wealth and property generally
corporate landlords hoarding housing properties specifically
shrinking of the middle class, reduced purchasing power of the average citizen, etc.
bullshit jobbers, predatory investors, "free market" capitalism but with golden parachutes and tax breaks/taxpayer subsidies for the "haves," etc.
China et al. buying up properties and companies in the West
fewer government policies supportive of/conducive to nuclear family units, home ownership, etc.

Good luck and God bless, because we're all going to need it in the coming decades.

I'd say the increase of the middle class, unless you're using that term in the American sense. We'd call them working class. People with basic or ok jobs who depend on their wages or salary as their main source of income.

Our middle class (the US upper middle class, doctors, lawyers, teachers, managers) suck up all resources, including in housing. I see this in Poland too.


This.

The next few decades might not be so bad, as long as we can boot conservatives out at the next election. If you mean America though, both your parties would be seen as conservative economically from a European point of view.

It took 20-30 years in Europe to undo many of the things the workers' movement had taken a century or more to achieve. Can we build them back (and better) though and how long will it take?

Who will set up the housing co-ops.?