Thinking about renting an apartment in Poland? There are some important things to know that might be different from your home country. Some are common sense, some are just strange, some could really cost you money and stress if you get caught out.

Here are 12 things to watch out for, based on experiences and stories from ex-pats who have moved to Poland. And you’ll find a lease signing checklist at the end of the article.

Your experience may vary, as is always the case with anectodal reports like this. But if nothing else, seeing what problems others have had might save you some real stress later. Some of these gotchas also apply to serviced apartments.
 

1. You may need to register at your local town hall, and have the landlord present

If you want to do anything serious in Poland, like register a car, get a PESEL number, or start a business you will probably need to be registered at both the voivodeship, and your local town hall. If you are lucky these might be in the same building.

To my surprise, I found that your landlord must actually be present in order for you to register yourself (this was in Sopot and Gdańsk). It makes no sense. The landlord doesn’t know why, the town hall doesn’t know why, nobody seems to know why. Rules may vary by town.

So if you are renting a place and want to register, be prepared to meet your landlord at the town hall and fill out your registration together. This might be a problem if your landlord does not live nearby, or even worse, if you have already moved in to the apartment and they decide for whatever reason they can’t be bothered to go to your town hall and do the paperwork.

Possible mitigation: Try and get registered immediately that you move in, before the landlord has had time to move away or lose interest in you.
 

2. If you want a home office you need a clause in your lease

When I say home office, I don’t mean dial in to the office and do some remote work. I mean if you ever want to run a legal business entity like Sp. z o. o. from home like I did, you will have to have a clause in your lease. Yes that’s right, when you go to try and set up your company you will need to provide a copy of your lease to the government, and being Poland, a standard lease just won’t do.

So if there is even the remotest possibility you will want to do it, get it in the lease when it’s being prepared to save yourself a huge headache later.

Possible mitigation: Decide in advance if you want to do this, and get it into the lease from the start, or more importantly, ensure there is no objection before you sign.
 

3. Most apartments are furnished

Many countries generally rent apartments unfurnished. It seems like the former iron curtain is a bit of a furniture curtain. While the Czech Republic is a mix of both, Poland is very much a furnished place, with 90%+ already furnished. If you find yourself coming from say Germany or Britain, you might have trouble sticking that truckload of furniture anywhere useful.
Options are quite limited..

• get rid of your stuff
• find a brand new apartment and get in before the landlord has had a chance to start buying stuff to fill it up
• convince the landlord to remove their tat so you can install your stuff
• buy your own house / apartment instead (shudder)

Possible mitigation: Tough to say, but the best approach might be to view furnished things, then see if you can wheedle your way into getting the landlord to take their stuff out.
 

4. Real estate agents often don’t have the keys

This definitely rates as bizarre for many foreigners. The estate agents that list the properties never have keys. That’s right, if you want to view a property, the landlord has to meet both you and the agent at the property. It seems the agent is something of a useless appendage, except for being a glorified telephonist / web page creator / email processor. If you are lucky, they might be able to help out with the language where the landlord can’t or won’t speak English.

They might also be able to make themselves useful if you want someone to twist the landlord’s arm into the above 1-registration or 2-clause.

Possible mitigation: Not much to say here, just be aware it can take a while sometimes to arrange viewings as you will need alignment of both landlord and agent.
 

5. Agent fees vary widely and sometimes have schemes

In return for being such an appendage, they want money. Sometimes a lot of money.

Back to your flat hunting, you might get agents asking for no fee, 50% of first months’ rent, or 100% of first months rent. There are no rules, but often there is no fee for you and the landlord pays it.

With some flat hunting experience under my belt, last time I was looking, I had my Polish assistant service ask the agent in the first minute of conversation if they had a fee to the tenant. If they said yes, the assistant was instructed to politely decline their service, and end the conversation. This was on the basis that I had a personal value call that I could afford to wait rather than blow thousands of złoty, and besides, often the same property would be listed with multiple agents.

We also found that when the agent realised that the assistant was about to sign off, sometimes they would suddenly become very flexible about the fee, and “perhaps could come to some other arrangement”.

I can’t really go any further without mentioning the excellent relocation help I had from Euro Concierge, I don’t know how I could have managed without them. They even handled the German speaking jobs to do with the apartment I had left behind.

Possible mitigation: Negotiate with agents. As with any negotiation, don’t appear too desperate or keen, even if you are.
 

6. Importing your stuff from outside the EU can get blocked

If you are importing your goods crossing in or out of an EU border, you can expect some level of bureaucracy hassle. Unfortunately, as you would expect, Poland is special. I have to be specific that we are talking about the port of Gdynia, and a truckload of goods from Switzerland. Experiences may be different when rolling the dice with other source countries and port authorities in the mix.

There is a lot to this story and it doesn’t apply to many people, so it’s under this tab to make it easier for skim readers:

Possible mitigation: Register in advance, have a job prearranged with supporting documentation, or have a “good reason” to move to Poland.
 

7. Hidden billing / media charges

In German it’s “Nebenkosten”, in Polish it’s “Media”, in Britain / commonwealth it’s not so common as utilities are usually paid by the individual, but sometimes there will be a building management charge on apartments.

Unfortunately the Polish system seems rife to use this as an opportunity to extort extra money from tenants, especially foreigners, but Polish are not immune to being victims. I have to emphasise this is not always the case, my present landlord is very good with it, and provides a breakdown twice a year including scans of all bills, and certainly does not exploit it.

Ex-pat Matthias tells of his bad experiences, not once but twice:

Even the locals can have problems with this, cold comfort that it is. Pole Edyta tells of the landlord who cut off her gas supply to try and extort more money.

Possible mitigation: The only time you have any leverage really is when you are signing the lease. Look for clauses on the media cost, how much it is, and whether electricity is included. When I moved into my last place I insisted on seeing a slip for a previous months’ bill. Press them for specific examples of summer costs and winter costs. Landlords with scruples will understand your concerns and have no problems showing you this. If they are evasive, take it as a warning sign.
 

8. Date confusion, payment dates, contract dates

It’s not so strange for some, but if you come from Britain or commonwealth countries, watch out for lease dates fixed to the calendar month.

I went through an entire lease signup process with the start date being the 10th of the month, or at least, that’s what I thought. After signing, the move date got closer, the notice had been given on the old place, and movers booked, so essentially a one-way street. On moving in day, I was presented with a bill for the deposit, and a whole calendar month of rent.

After much argument it turned out that my lease was not running from the 10th-10th every month, but in fact for the 1st. I paid for a 10 day “gift” where I didn’t have access, or keys to the place. Not a killer, but bad enough.

Possible mitigation: Either plan to move on the 1st, or explicitly request the first month is a partial pro-rata payment, at the time of signing.
 

9. Cleaned.. or not

Experiences may vary, but anyone coming from Switzerland or Germany will probably be shocked at the state of places they move into, Zürich or Berlin apartments for example are typically gleaming and immaculate. While you might get lucky, often the previous tenants and landlords do absolutely nothing in the way of cleaning between tenants.
I recall moving into one place and almost puking while scraping out rancid food remains from the fridge.

Possible mitigation: Agree on the cleaning expectation when signing, or even viewing. If the place looks messy, or you have any concerns, make it clear that it will be given back in the same state without commercial cleaning. Take photos on moving in day of any grossness, then feel free to leave the place in the same state when you go.
 

10. Witholding of deposit

Personally I got lucky with this and never had an issue. The landlords I have had always paid out within a month. But the stories are rife in Poland of problems with landlords not paying back the deposit. Giving someone a large pile of cash, we’d like to think that they put it in a nice separate account waiting for the day we move out, but it’s conceivable that they are just going to go out and spend it. Polish locals tell me that it’s commonplace to pay the last month’s rent using the deposit. Unthinkable in many countries.

I did, however, have one lease where they specified that the last months’ rent could not be paid with the held deposit. If you get this sort of clause, insist that they provide evidence of where this will be held in order that you have some sort of reassurance that they are not going to go and immediatley blow it on a tropical holiday.

Not all landlords are monsters, and some have good personal standards, are interested in a harmonious relationship with the tenant. You must also remember that sometimes landlords also get screwed over by tenants, so some level of suspicion on their part is normal.

Possible mitigation: Always – ALWAYS record the condition of the place when you move in, even better if you have an estate agent as a neutral third party who can verify inspection points / photo dates etc. Check the lease for any rules around the deposit storage and last payment. Make your last payment using the bond, if possible.
 

11. Maintenance woes

Leases should be similar to other countries, in that landlords are responsible for maintenance of the apartment and any chattels therein. However, some leases include clauses for the tenant to have some responsibiliy for maintenance, and no doubt landlords will not fall over themselves to tell you this at signup.

Ex-pat Matthew reports that his lease had “minor repairs” in there as a tenant responsibility, and so ended up lumbered with bills:

Ex-pat Jodie tells us:

Possible mitigation: Check for maintenance clauses on the lease before signing. Find a Polish speaker who can help, ideally someone who lives locally, or a concierge service, or even a lawyer. You might find a law firm will be willing to help as a backup, just their presence or even showing their business card might help, without costing you dearly.
 

12. Poor fire safety

I didn’t actually notice this until sometime after I had moved in – no smoke alarm. UK tenants will be used to this mandatory fitting, but not here.

Poland is not alone in this, and it’s not a big deal, but (wagging finger) make sure you get yourself at the bare minimum a smoke alarm. I have a smoke alarm, a fire blanket in the kitchen, a fire extinguisher and leave a key in the door overnight ready to unlock and open.
 

Appendix: Lease checklist

Consolidated from the above, here are some things to look out for when reviewing a tenancy lease. Remember, this is probably your one and only shot at having any leverage over the terms and conditions.

That’s about all. At 3000+ words it’s truly been a mega-article, and even the Google crawler might have not made it this far through.

If you take at least one thing away from this article, it’s been worth it. We’d love to hear from you, especially if there is something in here that helped you out.

Best of luck and I hope you enjoy your new life in Poland!