Accelerated entries in the land and mortgage books. You no longer have to wait half a year because the land and mortgage registry courts have less work
For several years, there was a very long wait for entries in the land and mortgage books – even more than half a year. However, “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna” reports that the situation has recently improved. This is good news for real estate owners, especially since the Sejm eventually rejected the planned act that would allow notaries to register.
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The problem of overloading of land and mortgage courts, which has been growing for several years, has decreased, reports the DGP. This shortens the waiting time for registration in the land and mortgage registers, for example in connection with the purchase of an apartment. It’s in big cities right now about 3-4 months (eg Warsaw, Łódź, Poznań), and there are also those where the wait is only 1.5-2 months (Opole, Kraków, Wrocław). This is a big change because in 2021, the average wait was about half a year, and there were cities where the wait was over 13 months (the capital). And it’s worth remembering that these delays created additional costs for the bank’s clients.
– Until the mortgage is registered in the land and mortgage books in favor of the bank, the bank demands a higher mortgage interest in the form of bridging insurance. This can increase the loan installment by up to 20 percent! – explained Sebastian Juszczak, PZFD expert for 2022.
In response to these delays, on September 17, 2022. an important amendment to the law on banks entered into force, thanks to which banks have to compensate clients for fees incurred in connection with waiting for mortgage registration. Therefore, borrowers no longer have to bear the costs of delays in land and mortgage courts.
As a reminder, the wait for registration began to increase in 2019 due to the courts being overwhelmed with obligations related to the conversion of permanent usufruct into ownership. The situation in 2020 was not improved even by the pandemic, which made the work of officials even more difficult. Now, however, as “DGP” reports, the number of cases in the courts has returned to the level of 2017-2018, so the wait for registration is shorter.
It should be noted that in 2022 the Government was working on changes to the law that were supposed to speed up enrollment. That was the point notaries were allowed to make entries in the land and mortgage books, which would relieve the courts and shorten the waiting time for entry. Notaries could: entries regarding:
- establishment of separate ownership of space,
- burdening the space with limited property rights (e.g. mortgage),
- burdening the space with other claims and rights.
After the changes, the notary public would also be obliged to inform the interested persons about the registration.
It seemed that the new solution would take effect at any moment. At the end of July, it was announced that the bill was ready and would be adopted “in the fall of this year.” In the meantime, on December 1, 2022. The Sejm completely rejected the project.
– The rather unexpected fiasco of the project (…) had little to do with the plans to enable notaries to make certain entries in the land and mortgage books. Much more controversial are proposals to introduce rather restrictive supervision over notaries. It was, among other things, the possibility of suspending a notary public according to the decision of the Minister of Justice – explains Magdalena Markiewicz, an expert of the NieruchomosciSzybko.pl portal.
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Numerous comments on the draft amendments to the law were made, among others, by the community of notaries public and court clerks. As the quoted expert explains, they pointed out, for example, that giving new powers to notaries public would require major changes in the IT system of land and mortgage books. It could take 2-4 years before everything starts working properly. As a result, property owners who have been waiting months for registration would not feel any difference.
– However, it cannot be ruled out that the Ministry of Justice will try to push through a draft amendment to the Law on Public Notaries (this time as a parliamentary law) – notes expert NieruchomosciSzybko.pl.
As it turned out, that was an accurate forecast – shortly after the Sejm rejected the bill, such plans were confirmed by the Deputy Minister of Justice, Marcin Warchoł. But the changes will have to wait.
Let’s add that the multi-month wait for registration is not the only problem related to land and mortgage registers. The dispute between the Office for Personal Data Protection and the Main Office for Geodesy and Cartography has been going on for a long time the dispute over how to protect Poles’ information contained in land and mortgage registers. On the one hand, the ability to check the land and mortgage book is essential for safe real estate transactions (eg you can make sure that the person listing the plot for sale is actually its owner). On the other hand, knowing the number of the land and mortgage book of real estate, you can easily get valuable information about the owner of the plot or space, for example their PESEL number, which can result, for example, in identity theft. Currently, this dilemma related to the GDPR is being resolved by the Supreme Administrative Court.
– The Supreme Administrative Court decides whether land and mortgage numbers are personal data and whether they can be publicly available on the website geoportal.gov.pl. Currently, the functionality of determining the land and mortgage number through it is unavailable [było to możliwe np. w 2020 r. – przyp. red.] – explains legal advisor Emilia Miśkiewicz from JKM Kancelaria Radców Prawnych.
