Inheriting trouble

Confirmation of an inheritance may be carried out by a notary and will not require court proceedings, following amendments to notary and inheritance laws that came into force last week.

Time, money and stress will be spared with the introduction of the notarial certificate of inheritance, the National Notarial Council (KRN) said at a recent conference. At least a third of the 160,000 annual inheritance cases in Poland will be taken over by notaries following the change, allowing courts to concentrate on other, more complex cases.

The bill will produce at least zł.27 million in savings to the national budget, the KRN estimates.

"Each court proceeding to confirm the acquisition of an inheritance costs at least zł.520 in public money," said Andrzej Urbanik, vice president of the KRN.

"Many people in Poland find court cases very stressful," Urbanik added.

The changes were the KRN's initiative, and it is not fully satisfied with the final version adopted by the Ministry of Justice. One of the key problems, officials said, is a nationwide electronic register of inheritance certificates that notaries are obliged to maintain under the new amendments.

According to KRN spokesperson Lech Borzemski, the data included in the register will be incomplete. "A notary will know whether the inheritance case has been previously carried out by another notary, but they will not know whether it was inspected by the court. Such an incomplete solution is absurd," he said.

While the KRN appealed to the Ministry of Justice for changes in the law, their postulates were ignored, according to Borzemski.

"We did not even receive a reply," he said.