Sub rent and stolen deposit (renting a flat in Warsaw)

Hello. I ve rented a flat in Warsaw for a year. The contract expired and i moved out to another flat. The guy who was renting me the room just disappeared and didn t give me back a month of rent i gave him in advance one year ago.

I don t have any contract but my name is stated in his contract. He was just sub renting me the room for a higher price and more he s stealing my deposit.

What can i do? Can i report this to urzad skarbowy, or take him to the court. How much should cost a lawyer here?

According to the law, the deposit must be paid within one month of leaving the apartment.
But you wasn't careful enough - where's your copy of the contract? It will be tough to do anything without it. It is required to scan this document and sent to the authority dealing with the case, for example to Electronic Writ Procedure - E-court: e-sad.gov.pl/Default.aspx.

Here you have two email addresses to legal clinic. They provide free and comprehensive advice on how to recover the deposit. info@nadmorski24.pl or porady@prawo-wiz.pl

thank you for the contacts...I will write them.

A lawyer asked for 400zl to write a letter +150zl for every time he will have to go to the court and he said that usually it needs 1 or 2 times. +35zl of court's tax and administrative costs. So in total it costs between 585zl and 735zl

According to the procedure regulation in Poland the guy I want to sue, in case I win, will have to pay up to 180zl for my lawyer, refunding me.

My deposits amounts to 700zl, but for some reason the landlord gave him back only 500zl.
Anyway in case the court approves my right to have back this money I will get 500+180 or 700+180. and my costs will be between 585zl and 735zl.

So there is a possibility I could pay 735zl and get only 680 back (the worst one) and the best one is that I will get 880zl and pay 585zl.

In short it seems that in Poland people are "authorized" (by an economic mechanism) to commit a crime or defraud someone for amounts up to 735zl, cause up to this it is not economic to sue in court the cheater.

p.s.: I don't have any copy of the contract, I asked for it many times but never got it. I was forced to pay as we first met. In warsaw is very difficult to get a room, and if you hesitate too much in a few hours they will rent the room to someone else.

as proof I have bank transfers, sms and facebook messages.

I don't know about Poland, but in Germany you can get insured against a need to use a lawyer. You pay around 20eur per month and in case you need a lawyer to protect your rights insurer pays instead of you. But then it would be similar calculation as you have now. 20 eur * 12 = 240 eur = 1000 PLN. So in case you have do deal with so small things you will loose more on insurance.

Isn't there a procedure which is very easy and done via an online or paper form and all it costs is 5% of what you claim for? That's what I heard, but I don't have the details. Maybe someone else can help.

I'd like to know if I can report by myself without a lawyer and pay this 5% tax. It would be very useuful seen that here in Poland is normal for landlords to steal the deposit.

Anyone knows anything about this procedure "inWroclaw" said?

I wrote also to info@nadmorski24.pl and porady@prawo-wiz.pl ...those ones Looker suggested, but still noneone answered... I will update this post! stay tuned ;)