Polish government plans to reintroduce perpetual usufruct rights and clarify land titles under apartment blocks to help housing cooperatives.
Reintroduction of Perpetual Usufruct Rights
The Ministry of Development and Technology wants to restore the possibility of establishing perpetual usufruct rights for residential land. The ministry is also attempting to regulate the legal status of land primarily under Warsaw’s apartment blocks. A bill on regulating rights to land built upon by housing cooperatives and amending the act on real estate management has been submitted to the Government Legislation Centre.
Currently, there is a ban on establishing perpetual usufruct for residential purposes. The development ministry proposes to abandon this ban and partially reverse the reform from seven years ago, which aimed to gradually eliminate this right. At that time, nearly 2.5 million residents of apartment blocks and single-family homes were granted property rights.
Preferential Conditions for Social Housing
The return of perpetual usufruct rights will benefit housing cooperatives and Social Housing Initiatives. Lifting the ban is intended to facilitate their implementation of social housing investments, which are not profit-oriented but aim to meet real housing needs.
For land granted in perpetual usufruct for apartments, social construction, and housing investments for students and doctoral candidates, preferential financial conditions have been proposed. The annual fee for perpetual usufruct is to be 0.3% of the land value, with the initial fee not exceeding 10% of its price.
Historical Context of Land Title Issues
The ministry also wants to regulate the legal situation of land under apartment blocks. The unclear legal status of these properties is a legacy from the Polish People’s Republic era. The problem did not arise out of nowhere; it originated in PRL times and grew over the years.
当时的当局（国民委员会）在批准建设公寓楼时并不特别关注正式程序，在这方面犯了许多错误。如今多年后，这正合作社及其居民付出了代价。最高法院的判决也起到了一定作用。截至2012年底，在法律地位未确定的土地上建造的房屋中，租赁权可以转化为所有权。土地产权法院为这些权利设立了产权登记簿，最高法院在两项裁决中批准了这一点。
New Regulations for Cooperative Claims
The situation changed in 2013 after a ruling by the same court (III CZP 104/12). Seven Supreme Court judges then ruled that the ownership right to an apartment in a building situated on land not owned by the cooperative or in perpetual usufruct has only an expectant character, i.e., a promise of that right. Consequently, establishing a land register to disclose it became impermissible.
The bill provides that housing cooperatives will be able to demand the establishment of perpetual usufruct rights for land and the gratuitous transfer of ownership of buildings, if these buildings were constructed on land belonging to the State Treasury or a municipality. This applies when: after December 5, 1990, the cooperative (or its legal predecessor) built buildings with the consent of the competent construction supervision authority, or before December 5, 1990, the buildings were constructed with the cooperative’s own funds (or its legal predecessor) with the consent of the construction supervision authority, and by the end of 1996 no claims provided for in the real estate management regulations were submitted.
Implementation Timeline and Procedures
The regulations will apply for only one year. Cooperatives will be able to make claims to the starost (in the case of State Treasury land) or to the mayors, presidents of cities, county councils, or voivodeship councils (when the land owner is a local government).
For establishing the right of perpetual usufruct, the cooperative will pay the municipality an initial annual fee of 15-25% of the market value, and then will have to pay annual fees of 1% of the property value. The transfer of building ownership will be free of charge.