ATTENTION ! automatic translation from Polish
As stated in art. 36 sec. 1 of the Act on Land and Mortgage Registers (hereinafter: „uKWH”): Courts, government administration bodies and local government units, as well as notaries preparing deeds of inheritance certification shall notify the court competent to maintain the land and mortgage register of any change in the owner of the real estate for which the land and mortgage register is established.
It results from this provision that notaries, when preparing a notarial deed of inheritance certification, and courts after issuing a decision on the confirmation of inheritance acquisition, are obliged to notify the land and mortgage register court of the new owners of the inherited real estate.
Importantly, the notification of the land and mortgage register department competent for the inherited real estate DOES NOT REPLACE THE ENTRY of new owners into the land and mortgage register in section II – „Ownership”. As a result of such notification, pursuant to art. 36 sec. 3 uKWH the competent land and mortgage register court in section II will place a warning that the legal status of the property disclosed in the land and mortgage register has become inconsistent with the actual legal status. At the same time as the warning, the court will notify the heirs indicated in the notification received from the court or notary about the entry of the warning. The notification to the heirs about the entry of the warning includes an instruction on the obligation to submit an application to disclose the ownership right within one month from the date of delivery of the notification. It is worth adding that on 10 March 2025, a draft amendment to the Notarial Law and the Land and Mortgage Registers and Mortgage Act was submitted (project number UD171), aimed at changing the content of art. 36 sec. 1 in the scope of notaries’ obligations when preparing inheritance certification deeds. The proposed changes are intended to create a legal basis for notaries to file an application on behalf of the heirs for entry of new owners in the land and mortgage register instead of merely notifying the land and mortgage register court, which would result in the above-mentioned warning about the inconsistency.
The proposed change assumes that, in the course of preparing the inheritance declaration deed, the notary will receive a declaration from the heirs as to whether the inheritance includes a cooperative ownership right to a premises, ownership or perpetual usufruct of real estate located in the territory of the Republic of Poland, and if so, will advise on the possibility of instructing the notary to prepare an application on behalf of the heirs for entry of the ownership right, provided that the legal succession after the person previously entered as the owner (i.e. in this case after the Testator) has been proven by appropriate documents.
The proposed changes should be assessed positively, as they significantly shorten the official procedure for disclosing new owners in the land and mortgage registers, which ensures more efficient implementation of the basic statutory task of land and mortgage registers, described in art. 1 sec. 1 uKWH: Land and mortgage registers are kept in order to determine the legal status of real estate.
However, regardless of the legal status (the adoption of the bill in the Council of Ministers is planned for the second quarter of 2025, the time of entry into force of the amendment itself is currently difficult to estimate), each time the information obligation of courts and notaries, referred to in art. 36 sec. 1 uKWH, is updated at the time of obtaining information about real estates included in the estate. Without obtaining this knowledge from the heirs or other entities, failure by the court or notary to inform about possible real estates included in the estate does not constitute a violation of the law.
MM