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 8–10 years. However, there are also cases that started at the beginning of the 1990s and have yet to be settled.

How many properties that were unlawfully nationalised are recovered per year?

In Warsaw app. 300–400 properties have been recovered in recent years, but this does not include cases conducted in the form of indemnities. I am carrying on more than 150 cases at the moment. They are different segments, different cases and different places: Warsaw, the agricultural reform, everything that connected with the reprivatisation.

What examples of properties have you managed to recover?

We recovered the palace at ul. Miodowa 6/8 for the Potocki family, the palace at al. Ujazdowskie 13, which belongs to my family, as well as a building at al. Ujazdowskie 21, which used to belong to the Rzyszczewski family. We received compensation for this villa because it is currently used by the Hungarian Embassy. In addition to this, we also managed to obtain compensation for a square near the Opera House, where the Metropolitan office building was developed. The building that stood there during the war owned by the Zamoyski family was demolished. It was similar in the case of a palace in Kozłówka – we received compensation for the palace and the movables that used to belong to the Zamoyski family. And a castle in Rokosowo of the Czartoryski family, which we also managed to recover.

What percentage of recovered properties are outside Warsaw?

I think, about 50–60 pct.

How successful is the process for recovering such properties?

Based on the cases I have conducted so far, I would estimate the success rate at around 80 pct.

What are the costs for such a process?

The majority of such cases are based on percentage remuneration, which ranges from 15 to 30 pct of the property’s value. Large law offices usually charge an annual lump sum and the reimbursement of their costs, but contrary to the popular view, fewer and fewer law firms are deciding to take on such cases as they are too long and too risky.

And is it not possible to simply consider the legal regulations of the 1940s invalid? It would streamline and speed up the process...

It is possible, but nobody wants to do this. First of all, as soon as the decree is revoked, all the properties should be returned to their previous owners. And this is unrealistic. Warsaw has changed its ownership structure and full scale ‘restitutio ad integrum’ is impossible. A resolution should be passed that would stipulate full compensation or, if possible, return in kind. There is also an additional issue. The current rhetoric of the opponents of the restitution boils down to the assumption that the whole of Warsaw was rebuilt by the people and now ‘they’ come and want to take away what ‘we’ built with our own hands. A lot of owners rebuilt their buildings themselves and then they were brutally expropriated. The majority of the population does not know about this and they respond: ‘What are you talking about? My grandfather built the Barbican with his bare hands!’ The reality was rather different. All the land within the city limits was taken away. In accordance with the decree it was possible to apply for what was then known as temporary ownership rights, i.e. the perpetual usufruct nowadays. It needs to be emphasised that almost everybody was declined that right. I have been involved in the case concerning the Polonia hotel for many years. The owner of the hotel had the property confiscated only because he went abroad...

And what if someone has not submitted an application?

Then the process is extremely difficult and often impossible to win. And this is inconsistent with the basic sense of justice. A decree application should not determine the ownership rights. But in reality it does.

Then these properties remain in the hands of the city or state?

Yes, they do. But the issue of state property now arises. A government or council clerk has no interest in caring for the state of the property, because this involves common assets unrelated to them. I have to repeat this to those who persist in saying that it was the people’s government who rebuilt the capital city. And what if there was a normal system after the war, would it not have been rebuilt? Warsaw would have been rebuilt considerably better. Owners would have certainly rebuilt their houses, which they often did. Everybody would have had a stake in their property, but now that communism has gone, this feeling and thus the primacy of private property is often questioned in Poland. The majority of public opinion is against the former owners. And the authorities are afraid to raise this issue publicly, thus no reprivatisation act has been passed for 26 years, sanctioning regular theft. On June 25th a law was passed by parliament making it possible to refuse to return a property due to its public utility. But what does public utility mean? A good example of this is a property restituted at ul. Foksal 6. This was the seat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But happened? Nothing. The Ministry simply started renting the building on a commercial basis from its owners. And what is wrong with that? Admittedly, there is the issue of whether to return a property in kind if there is a nursery school or a football pitch now on it. Fair enough, don’t return it – but offer a replacement plot or pay the equivalent in compensation. This act does not permit this, which violates the Constitution, but MPs have turned a blind eye to this in spite of the protests of owners’ groups. The act entails that such buildings as the one at ul. Foksal 6 need to be protected. But why? After all, it used to be private property! If there is someone who uses it, they will not be evicted. Ownership is normality – and the refusal to return a property is pathological.

Why then is there no large-scale publicity campaign from the former owners?

There are fewer of us, owners, and not everyone has the strength to get involved and actively defend their rights. By nationalising everything after the war, Poland became a hostage of the ideology of common property and the aesthetic chaos that ensued. Schools, orphanages and hospitals were opened in all those wonderful buildings, which were completely unsuitable for such use. And they tried to destroy the buildings through this ideology. The effective confiscation from a large section of society of their possessions for many generations, the brutal and unlawful expropriation through the introduction of communist decrees, was a class war aimed at the destruction of this section of society. Everything related to it was ruthlessly destroyed, because nobody cared for it. For example, the palace in Guzów: when my family was evicted in 1945, with literally one suitcase, all the valuable and historic objects in the house remained inside. In five years the palace was stripped of everything. People burnt books, took everything away. First an agricultural junior high school opened there. Then the offices of a sugar plant took up residence, as it was located opposite the palace. This was also our property by the way, and also nationalised after the war. Apart from offices it contained apartments for the workers of the sugar factory. The result of this period was a deliberate and total devastation of our home. Then the 1990s came. The sugar factory left the palace and completely plundered it – and what followed was the worst seven years before we recovered this property.

Seven years is not the worst it could have been for recovering a palace.

It is not, but for those seven years the building was empty, unheated and, worst of all, unsecured. What happened? People went in, drunk, destroying whatever had not been destroyed in the previous 45 years. They would pull something off just for fun, the roof leaked, water was pouring inside. Finally the ceiling partially collapsed. By 1996 it was a complete ruin. Before that there were things inside which, as it seemed, nobody would manage to take away or destroy – for example, a billiard table with an extremely heavy marble surface. It also went missing. How determined do you have to be to carry off such a heavy billiard table? Guzów is an example of how Poland became a country without roots, completely detached from its history, its historic artefacts looted. Out of 20,000 historic palaces and manor houses that existed in Poland before 1945, only around 2,500 survive today.

We simply did our best to recover it...

But – as we already know – not everyone who tries to do this is successful...

Everyone tries, unfortunately not everyone succeeds. As far as palaces and parks are concerned, if someone regains such properties nowadays, it is only by proving that the agricultural reform did not entail confiscating houses with parks. It was only possible to take over buildings that were functionally connected with the land property. And yet, clearly, everything was confiscated. People were evicted from their houses, they were not allowed to take anything with them, and that was it. Possessions, paintings, furniture were all requisitioned. Of course, without any compensation!! Any attempt to protect your own property was initially punished by death, and then by heavy prison sentences – and this is seldom spoken of. Owners could not even stay in the same administrative district and later were not allowed to live closer than 50 km from their former properties. If someone recovers their property nowadays it is by proving that the building was not functionally connected with an agricultural undertaking. These are often absurd evidentiary hearings. I was in a different situation. My father and I had to buy our house in Guzów back. The state did not want to return it to us, and the case dragged on for many years... The building was becoming more and more dilapidated and finally it was illegally put up for sale. Then I decided that I would try to buy it back. This was 1996. It was as if your car had been stolen and after maybe ten years the same, worn out and wrecked car was being sold back to you. Despite that I decided to buy it back. When we bought Guzów I was very young and naïve – I thought that I could quickly restore it! Of course, I more or less knew what I was taking on, but I certainly didn’t expect it to absorb so much energy and funds...

And is it not possible to receive compensation for the unlawful usage of the palace by the state?

Regulations are structured in such a way and judicial decisions are so unfavourable that this is very unlikely. After 1989 reprivatisation became socially acceptable, but political bodies were very reluctant to implement it. As the years went by, the consensus weakened and finally the majority of the population became hostile to the idea. Now there is no realistic chance for this. For more or less a year there has been a crazy witch-hunt regarding former owners: that they evict people from tenements, they throw them out of areas that include green squares, schools, that the property must not be returned. However, nobody takes into consideration the situation of former owners, who cannot recover their property. Expropriation would mean that someone is fully compensated these days. However, the current rhetoric is that these people consist of owners who built the properties in an unknown and certainly dishonest way, e.g. through serfdom – so they should not be given their properties back. But let’s not discuss that, there is not point protecting oneself against absurd and pseudo- historical accusations. Serfdom was abolished in Poland over 160 years ago. The management of assets took place on a normal free market basis, contrary to the thesis of slave labour that made the owners rich, which is a widespread view among fierce opponents of reprivatisation. I have to fight against these ludicrous accusations on an everyday basis.

Returning to his roots

Michał Sobański is a graduate of Roman Studies at the University of Warsaw. In 1998 he founded the Reprywatyzacja company dedicated to the restitution of confiscated assets. Since 2004 he has been the owner of the Restitutio ad Integrum company, which specialises in reprivatisation cases for properties all over Poland. Privately he is a sports enthusiast, particularly tennis, as well as having an interest in architecture and the history of art. In 1997 he and his father bought back a derelict palace in Guzów, which was a property of the aristocratic Sobański family before the war.