In brief
If you live abroad and want to build a residence in Poland, most of the things that work differently here are settled before the architect starts drawing. The land: a citizen of a country in the European Economic Area or of Switzerland buys a plot without any permit, while anyone from outside that circle should assume that a permit from the interior minister is needed, because a purchase without it is void. The local plan says what may be built on the plot, and says it before you arrive; the design that goes to the authority is signed by a designer licensed in Poland, and your own architect keeps the concept and the interiors. The law here names four roles – the investor, the designer, the site manager and the owner’s supervision inspector – and the general contractor is not among them, because I am in your contract. The house you build with me is masonry and reinforced concrete, takes about two years from the start of works and goes through at least one winter. Little of this requires you to be here. Below I write exactly what needs you in person, what does not, and how you will know what is really happening on the build.
What I know about this, and what I do not
I build in Poland, from my base right next to Tarnowskie Góry in Silesia: in Silesia and the Beskidy mountains, in Lesser Poland, in Lower Silesia and in Warsaw. Warsaw is normally within my range – it is so well connected by expressways and motorways that it is practically on my doorstep, and I am there often. Poznań is already at the edge of my range, so I take on work there only as an exception, for an interesting project; further north I do not build. I have not built anywhere else, and I do not know how this process works in your country, so I will not tell you that the Polish way is better or worse. It is the one I know. I do not buy the land for you and I do not draw up the notarial deed – that stays with your lawyer and the notary; what I do is show you when those things have to be ready for the build to start.
What I can tell you is what the process looks like from the inside, because I walk through it with every client, from the notary’s office to the day building control has nothing more to say. People who write to me from abroad usually start with three questions. Can they buy land at all in a country they do not live in? Who signs the drawings, if their architect works somewhere else? And how will they know what is happening on a build two thousand kilometres from their desk? I will take them in that order.
The land: who may buy it
The first thing I ask someone from abroad is which passport the buyer holds, because that decides whether buying the land needs a permit. If you are a citizen of a country in the European Economic Area or of Switzerland, the law on foreigners acquiring property does not touch you: you buy without a permit, any size, anywhere in the country. Nor does it touch a Pole living permanently abroad, because where you live does not make anyone a foreigner. If you are from outside that circle, assume you need a permit from the interior minister before the notary draws up the deed. There are exemptions – a Polish spouse, long years of residence in Poland, an inheritance – and whether one of them covers you is for your lawyer to decide. What nobody can put right afterwards is a purchase made without a permit that was required: such a purchase is void.
Two things about that permit matter for a residence. The procedure takes months, so it goes into the schedule before the design, not alongside it. And the permit for a house comes with a limit on the size of the plot; with the kind of land a residence usually needs, that is a conversation with your lawyer before it is one with the architect. There is also a formal promise of the permit, issued in advance and valid for a set time as long as the facts do not change; it lets you sign a preliminary agreement with some certainty. Buying through a Polish company changes nothing here if the company is yours, because the law looks at who controls it.
The second thing is the land register – the cadastre, which records what kind of land each plot is – and it catches even those who may buy without a permit. Land that the register still classes as agricultural or forest has its own rules: on many sales a state agency has a right of first refusal, and who may own farmland at all is restricted. What counts is what the register says, not what the plan allows. A plot that the local plan shows as building land can still be a field in the register – and often it is, on the edge of a village, which is exactly where a residence wants to stand.
What I do next is the same plot vetting I do for everyone: groundwater, the bearing capacity of the soil, what the plan allows, whether the grid can supply the house, whether a concrete mixer truck can get there and whether you have the right to use the road it arrives by. I set it out in the text on vetting a plot. For a buyer from abroad I add one question before all of that: can this land legally be yours, and how much time will the permit add? If you do not have a plot yet, I look for one, check it and negotiate the purchase; that is a separate service, and you sign the power of attorney for the negotiations, because in them I act as your representative.
The plan decides before the architect draws
In Poland, what may stand on a plot is decided by the local plan, which is local law, and this surprises more people than the permit itself. The plan sets the height and the number of storeys, the pitch and sometimes the colour of the roof, what share of the plot may be built on, how much must stay green, and the lines the building must not cross. There is no conversation with an officer about what you would like: you read the plan and comply with it, or you buy elsewhere. I have seen plans that prescribed the pitch and the colour of the roof and required the garage to sit inside the body of the house.
Where there is no local plan, the municipality issues a planning decision for the plot, and that decision looks over its shoulder at what already stands around; a residence among modest houses can be held to their scale. The rules for issuing those decisions change, and at times whole municipalities cannot issue them at all, which is why for a plot without a plan I check the planning status as of the day you decide, before you sign anything. Nor do I treat it as settled until the day of purchase, because it can change between the viewing and the signature.
Your architect, and the signature the design needs here
The design work stays with your architect, and nobody here minds. What does matter is the signature: the building design that goes to the authority has to be signed by a designer licensed in Poland and registered with the Polish chamber. An architect from the European Union can have their qualifications recognised here – the chamber expects, among other things, a working command of Polish – and some do. The usual arrangement is simpler: your architect handles the concept and the interiors, and a Polish practice takes the design through the permit and the technical documentation, working alongside your studio. One thing to settle with your studio early is who may adapt the design here, because the author keeps the rights to the concept, and an adaptation is a work of its own.
A building design here has three parts: two go to the office with the permit application, and the third is prepared before the works start, stays on site and comes back with the completion papers. The crew also needs a fourth level of drawings that the law does not require at all, and it is that level which decides whether the contractor can be held to account against the design.
The permit itself comes from the county office for the place where the plot lies; your own address plays no part in it. The office has a statutory deadline, but the clock stops every time the office asks for something, and I put those pauses into the schedule in advance, so that later they do not look like a delay. Neighbours whose land falls within the building’s zone of influence are parties to the case and may appeal, which is one more reason to read the plan carefully before the design exists. A permit does not last for ever either: if the build does not start within a few years, it lapses.
Before the first excavator there are four formalities, and all of them are short: building control is notified of the start date, a site manager is appointed, an information board goes up at the gate, and the construction log is opened. The last of these brings us to the people, because only licensed people may make entries in the log, each signing under their own licence.
Four roles the law names here – and one it does not
Polish building law names four participants in a build: the investor, the designer, the site manager and the owner’s supervision inspector. It requires a licence of each of them or places duties on them. The general contractor is not on that list, because the law does not mention him; I exist in your contract, and the statutory roles sit with the four people above. For you this has one practical consequence: what you require of me comes from the contract, and what the law requires happens regardless of what the two of us agree.
The investor is you. The law makes it your duty to have a site manager on the build – kierownik budowy, a word you will see on every form – and on my builds I arrange that person. The site manager is my employee or a regular associate. He is licensed, he is responsible for the build going ahead in line with the approved design and the regulations, he keeps the log, and at the end it is his signature that declares the house finished. I want him on site when the build calls for it: in the excavation and on the roof, with his instruments in hand. A site manager who signs off work over the telephone is simply not one I work with. When the excavator opens the ground, he is standing there, comparing what he sees with the ground investigation report.
Now something a contractor will rarely tell you, and which matters most on a build run from abroad: I recommend having supervision of your own on your side, not people I have chosen. The owner’s supervision inspector – inspektor nadzoru inwestorskiego – is optional for a private house, but on a residence built from a distance I would have one myself. It is also a good idea to hire an inspector who will check the build at its most important moments as part of the owner’s supervision – not as the site manager. The law forbids one person to hold both roles, and rightly so, because the inspector is there to keep an eye on the contractor, while the site manager runs the works. The inspector is your eyes: a licensed person who works for you, checks the work on your behalf and can stop it. I want him in the team from the first day, independent of me and of the site manager.
That leaves the construction log – the official record of what happened on site, in which only licensed people may make entries. It can be kept in a state-run online system, and for a client abroad that is where I want it, because you can open it from wherever you are and read what the site manager entered yesterday. It is terse and written for building control, so nobody will smooth it over later.
Masonry, concrete and two winters
People who write to me from abroad sometimes expect a different house from the one they will get here. Because this is not America, where everyone builds timber frame. In Poland a masonry house has been the default choice for generations, and my speciality is clay-block walls with reinforced concrete; the residences I build are heavy, with deep basements, thick slabs and concrete wherever the spans or the loads require it. Timber frame done well is a good house too, because the obstacle here is not the climate – Scandinavia builds timber frame in a worse one – but the workmanship, and a good timber-frame crew is rarer in this country than a good bricklayer.
Three things follow from that for you. The ground here freezes – to a depth measured in tens of centimetres, in the colder parts of the country well past a metre – and foundations usually go below that line, so the earthworks are deeper than someone from a mild climate expects. In the coldest zones design temperatures go below −20°C, so the walls are thick, triple glazing is the norm, and every new house is designed to a statutory energy standard and finishes with an energy performance certificate. And the house takes about two years from the first excavator, because concrete and drying screeds take the time they take; a residence build goes through at least one winter, more often two, and the work is planned so that the building is weathertight before the first of them and the winter months are spent working inside. I walked through those two years, quarter by quarter, in the text on why a residence takes about two years.
Materials here are bought on the European market: products carry the CE marking, and a window certified only in Britain or America is not enough here on its own. For things Poland does not have I work with partners abroad – mainly in the USA, also in Germany and the Netherlands – so something being unavailable in Poland does not end the conversation with me. Timber that arrives on site wet dries out afterwards inside the structure, and moves as it does. Unfortunately, the moisture content of timber here, even certified timber, varies. I know, because I check what arrives on my sites, and sometimes something has to dry out first. And if there is no time for it to dry – it goes back to the supplier.
The contract and the price
A contract for a house built here comes under Polish law and is written in Polish, and you get an English version so that you read what you sign; which version prevails if they ever disagree is something your lawyer settles with mine before the contract is signed. My price is a lump sum – a figure agreed before we start, with the cost risk on my side. We start with a range that gets narrower with every conversation and every version of the concept, and once the concept is ready, the price is fixed. We settle up stage by stage, not up front. I described the whole model in the text on the lump sum. My crews, my suppliers and the concrete plant are all paid in złoty, and how you fund your side is between you and your bank.
One thing matters especially when you are far away. Unfortunately, even a good contract will not protect you completely. If something goes badly wrong, the contract will not sort it out here and now, and if you recover anything at all, it will be years later – and a claim pursued from another country moves more slowly still. A contract is necessary and I will not work without one, but the protection that really works is checking the contractor before you sign: comparing firms, references, their sites. What to ask every contractor – me included – I set out in a separate text. Check me thoroughly before you sign, because that works better than trust in paperwork.
Being abroad: what needs you in person, and what does not
Two signatures have to be yours, or your proxy’s: the deed for the land and the building contract. A proxy can sign even the deed in your place under a notarial power of attorney – though if you can, come for that one; it is your land. Decisions and changes along the way still need your yes, but you can give it by telephone. The rest of the formalities can be handled under a power of attorney: the permit application, the notifications, the correspondence with the office, the closing of the build. A power of attorney signed abroad usually needs an apostille and a sworn translation into Polish, and your lawyer will also tell you which identification numbers the notary will ask for. The offices also need an address for service where letters will reach you, and living abroad does not exempt you from that.
With that power of attorney in hand, my company handles all the formalities of obtaining the building permit on the client’s behalf. After that the client can leave for the other end of the world and come back towards the end of the build. As long as the payments keep pace with the progress of the works, that is enough. For a residence that still holds, with one correction: more of the decisions are yours – how you want to live in the house and what should please the eye – and I ask for them months before they are needed, so that nobody has to guess anything.
That leaves the third question from the start: how will you know what is really happening on the build? Every Friday you get a report, and every layer that gets covered up has photographs on your client portal, which you can open from anywhere; I am the one who talks to everyone working on the house, and in an urgent matter you call me directly. What that rhythm looks like week after week I described in the text on living alongside the build.
You come when you want to, because the build does not need you there to move forward. And at the end you come back to a house that already has everything in it, from the bed linen to the lamp by the bed.
When the house is finished: making it legal to live in
When the house is finished, you still cannot move in until building control has been notified. The investor files the notice of completion and attaches the papers that prove the house is done: the site manager’s statement that it was built to the approved design, the surveyor’s as-built survey, the test reports for the installations, the energy performance certificate and the technical design with the changes marked on it. For an ordinary private house, the fire service and the sanitary inspectorate usually have nothing to say, and if the house has unusual systems, I check that separately. Building control has a short statutory window to object, and if it does not, you may move in. Usually it does not. The house number, by the way, can be assigned before all that, which matters when you want a letterbox before you have a home.
This is where the site manager’s job ends, and looking after the house once you have the keys is a separate contract.
What I do not promise, and when Poland is the wrong place for this house
I do not promise dates that belong to the offices: the ministry’s permit, the county’s decision, building control’s silence. I prepare complete applications and follow their progress, but how long they sit in an office does not depend on me.
I do not build in the north of Poland, the Tricity of Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot included. I supervise every stage in person, and at that distance I would not get there as often as needed – I would rather say no than supervise by flying visits.
Nor do I take over a build someone else has started, at any stage and whatever the budget, because I will not take responsibility for work I did not see before it disappeared under the next layer. Besides, there is a wait for my builds, so I will not take time from one client’s house to rescue another.
If you want to be on site every day and choose the crews yourself, this model is not for you, because it would take away exactly the part you enjoy. I would rather say that now than find it out together in a year.
And one thing I have no influence over: not every piece of land you fall for can be yours. A plot registered as agricultural, a municipality that cannot issue planning decisions today, a plot larger than the permit allows – money and patience will not solve these. A different plot does, and I would rather tell you so before you fall for the first one.
What I ask a foreign investor before I say yes
There is nothing to prepare for the first conversation, but this is what I will ask:
- Who will be the owner – you, your spouse or a company – and which passport does that person hold (for a company, the person who controls it)? It decides whether a permit is needed and how large the plot may be.
- Has your lawyer in Poland already seen the land register extract for this plot?
- Does the plot have a local plan, and if not, can a planning decision be obtained for it today?
- Which architect handles the concept, and who will sign the building design here?
- In which language do you want the documents, and who translates what?
- Who decides when you cannot be reached – a business partner, someone in the family, nobody – and how far ahead do you want to receive questions?
- How often do you intend to be on site, and what do you expect from me after the keys are handed over?
Some of these you will not know yet. That is fine; it is where we start.
Questions about working with me – from the budget, through the team and references, to the settlement model – I answer in the Questions section.
Frequently asked questions
Can a foreigner buy land and build a house in Poland?
Yes. The building side – the plan, the permit, the licensed site manager, the log – is the same for everyone. The difference lies in the land: a citizen of the European Economic Area or of Switzerland buys a plot without a permit, and anyone else needs a permit from the interior minister, because a purchase without it is void. Land registered as agricultural or forest has its own restrictions whatever your passport, so here the lawyer goes before the architect.
Do I have to be in Poland during the build?
No. The permit and the formalities are handled under a power of attorney, a proxy can sign the notarial deed, we settle up stage by stage, and you get a report every Friday and a portal with photographs of the layers that have been covered up. The questions that need your decision reach you months ahead, so you do not have to decide in a rush. Come when you want to see the house grow, because the build will not stop while you are away.
Can my own architect from abroad design the house?
The concept and the interiors, yes – and that is where the value of a good architect lies. The building design filed for the permit has to be signed by a designer licensed in Poland; an architect from the European Union can have their qualifications recognised here, and a working command of Polish is one of the conditions. In practice a Polish practice takes your architect’s design through the permit and the technical documentation, and I coordinate both sides on the build.
How long does it take from buying the land to moving in?
The build itself takes about two years from the start of works. Before it there is a calendar of its own: the design, the permit and, for a buyer from outside the European Economic Area, the permit for the land as well. That is why from the first conversation to the start of works it is most often at least 12 months, and more for a plot without a local plan. A date for your house I work out from a schedule built on your documentation, not from an article.
Let’s talk about your project – even if you are thinking about a residence in Poland while living on the other side of the world.