Risk and restitution

When investing in warsaw property, it is worth paying attention to the legal aspects. As a result of the city’s troubled history, an investor or developer can encounter some complex ownership issuesUnder the Decree on Land Ownership and Use within the City of Warsaw dated 26th October 1945, the Polish state took over the ownership of all land within the capital’s city limits with effect from the date of the decree coming into force (21st November 1945). Once the relevant Warsaw borough had taken over land, property owners had six months to apply for perpetual leases or the right to develop it. In 1961, those rights were converted into perpetual usufructs.While Article 5 of the decree provided that buildings on the affected land would remain the property of the existing owners, that right was virtually notional, since in the case of severely damaged buildings, which were almost all buildings in those days, the relevant borough could give the owner a deadline to take them ove