Rightfully theirs

Anna Pakulniewicz, ‘Eurobuild Central & Eastern Europe’: You have been involved in reprivatisation, professionally and privately. What does the process for recovering a property entail these days? Michał Sobański: One example would be confiscating a property from its owner in 1950 on the basis of a decree decision. At present, such a decision can now be considered invalid in certain situations, but we seem to be moving back to the bad old days and the legal situation of that time. And this means that we are in a situation in which the decision was never issued. So the law of today cannot be used for establishing the invalidity of the decision. How long does such a process last – is it possible to put a figure on this? The process for Warsaw cases usually takes three to four years on average. The restitution of palace and park complexes, which were acquired on the basis of a different decree – as part of agricultural reform – usually takes 8–