Q&A • Real Estate

What documents do you need before listing a property for sale in Poland?

The listing file starts with the land register, not with the photographs. The land register decides who may sign, what encumbrances the buyer takes on, and which court fees appear in the buyer's cost estimate.

Short answer

  1. Start with the land register (księga wieczysta): it shows the owner, the property description and the encumbrances entered against it.
  2. If the property has no land register yet, opening one costs 100 zł on top of the entry - art. 44 ust. 1 pkt 1 in connection with art. 45 ust. 1.
  3. A mortgage in section IV does not block the sale, but it has to be cleared: deleting it costs 100 zł under art. 46, not 150 zł.
  4. The buyer's ownership entry is 200 zł under art. 42 ust. 1, and a mortgage entry for the buyer's loan is another 200 zł under the same provision.

Read the land register before you write the listing

The land register is organised in four sections and each of them changes something in the listing. Section I describes the property and the rights attached to it, section II names the owner, section III holds rights, claims and restrictions, and section IV holds mortgages. An agency that reads all four before publishing avoids the two worst outcomes: advertising an area that does not match the register, and discovering a co-owner a week before the notarial appointment.

What the register decides about the buyer's costs

  • Ownership entry for the buyer: 200 zł - art. 42 ust. 1.
  • Mortgage entry, if the buyer finances the purchase: another 200 zł under the same provision, because a mortgage is a limited right in rem.
  • Opening a land register where there is none: 100 zł, charged in addition to the entry - art. 44 ust. 1 pkt 1 in connection with art. 45 ust. 1.
  • Deleting the seller's mortgage: 100 zł - art. 46, half the entry fee.
  • None of these depends on the price. The item that does is PCC, whose base is the market value of the property under art. 6 ust. 1 pkt 1 - not necessarily the price written into the contract.

The rest of the listing file

Beyond the register, the notary and the buyer's bank will ask for the same set of papers every time. Collecting them before publication is what keeps a sale from stalling between the preliminary contract and the deed. Confirm the current scope with the notary handling the transaction - the list below is agency practice, not a statutory catalogue.

  • The document under which the seller acquired the property: a notarial deed, a court decision on inheritance or a notarial deed of succession certification.
  • For a flat in a housing community or a cooperative: a certificate that there are no arrears in charges, plus the community or cooperative details the buyer's bank asks for.
  • A certificate on persons registered for residence at the address, which the buyer will ask for even where the register itself is silent.
  • An energy performance certificate for the unit or building, and the floor plan or area calculation that backs up the area you advertise.
  • Where a mortgage is entered in section IV: the lender's statement of the outstanding balance and its consent to deletion, obtained early rather than on the day of the deed.

Three mistakes that cost a transaction

  • Advertising an area taken from an old plan instead of the one that matches the register and the area calculation.
  • Treating the mortgage in section IV as the seller's private problem. It is the buyer's bank that has to see how it will be cleared, and 100 zł under art. 46 is the cheapest part of that.
  • Promising the buyer a total cost without checking whether the property has a land register at all - the missing 100 zł is small, but the delay in opening one is not.

How 4property helps the agency

In 4property each property card carries a document checklist, so an agent sees at a glance what is still missing before the listing goes out to the portals. The land-register number, the area and the encumbrances are stored on the card itself, which means the listing text, the buyer's cost estimate and the brokerage contract all draw on the same figures instead of three different versions circulating by email.

See also