Mateusz Dembinski's Red Tape Hot Box

Many foreign businessmen get frustrated when they hear that their documents must be notarised. Although this is a common procedure everywhere, in this country it has grown slightly out of its "normal" proportions, meaning that instead of helping, it creates another bureaucratic level to deal with. I'll give you an example of how it really works. In Croatia, a foreign businessman was asked to notarise his signature for his office in Zagreb so it could collect some outstanding tax rebate from the tax authorities. All they needed was his notarised signature on a letter written in Croatian. He was happy to sign as he had a simple translation of the few lines in the note. But when the businessman came to Poland, it was not such a simple matter! He had to get an official interpreter to translate the document from Croatian into Polish. Then he had to employ another interpreter who had to be present with him at the notary's office so that the document could be explained to him once again, this time in English, in order for him to know what he was actually signing.

Nowadays, most investors are asked by institutions which organise different tenders to notarise certain documents or reference letters about the previous work that they've done. If a certain firm is taking part in a few tenders at the same time, it has to attach copies of notarised documents to its offers. Unfortunately, if the firm loses the tender, then all this paperwork goes into the rubbish bin. This is another quite annoying procedure, which is not only time-consuming, but also money-wasting since for each copy a firm must pay zł. 5 plus VAT. No wonder that the notaries aren't too popular in this country among businessmen. But if you're broke and thinking about changing your profession, become a notary. It will pay off.

Red tape bugging you? Tell Mateusz about it at mdembinski@wbj.pl.