Gminas lose in local land grab

Under current civil law, citizens who have been using land for more than 30 years that does not officially belong to them can now acquire it. The directive was enforced in 1990, and since October 1 citizens can takeover property they have been using, despite the fact that it formally belonged to gminas or the State Treasury.

Individuals need to pay a purely symbolic fee to stake their ownership claim.

Very often the 'illegal' occupation of land is a result of people living on property that belonged to their ancestors without formalizing their situation. Errors have also often occurred when people have fenced off land incorrectly. Practically all gminas face losing some land. However, the Ministry of Infrastructure does not have any reliable data on how many people are occupying land that does not belong to them or what land is disputed.

It is roughly estimated that in Warsaw alone there are 10,000 such plots. Gminas could run into serious financial problems, as some of these disputed lands may be on ground that is designated for development, such as land in the path of proposed motorways. This property will then have to be bought back by the local government.

To avoid a massive land grab, gminas can hire land surveyors to carefully catalogue and verify tenants' property rights. This could prove enormously expensive; in the town of Zielona Góra, for example, such work will cost zł.300,000.