Abstract
There are over 5,000 land communities in Poland that own real estate with an area of over 100,000 hectares. In 2009, the Supreme Audit Office (SAO, in Polish the Najwyższa Izba Kontroli) carried out an audit of the factual and legal status of State Treasury property and municipal property. The inspection also included properties belonging to land communities and showed numerous irregularities in their functioning throughout Poland. The result of the audit was large changes to the Law regulating the operation of land communities, i.e. the Law of June 29, 1963 on the Development of Land Communities. The amended act was intended to facilitate the regulation of the legal status of many properties in Poland.This article presents an analysis of the legal status of real estate of land communities made on the basis of the audit carried out in 2009 by the Supreme Audit Office. The article presents the procedure of regulating the legal status of real estate according to the provisions of the amended Law on the management of land communities. Furthermore, it contains the analysis of administrative proceedings concerning land community in selected counties located in the Masovian Voivodeship (i.e. the district of Ostrołęka and the district of Przysucha) to check whether the amended law helped to regulate the legal status of community lands and land communities.
Highlights
The beginnings of land communities in Poland date back to the 19th century [1,2,3,4]
In the event that it is impossible to establish a list of those entitled to participate in the community of land, thanks to the amended law it is possible to take over land belonging to land communities free of charge to the property of the locally competent commune or the State Treasury
In accordance with the applicable provisions, after the decision on recognizing the real estate as a land community, the starosta should establish a list of those entitled to participate in the community
Summary
The beginnings of land communities in Poland date back to the 19th century [1,2,3,4]. The amended Act on the development of land communities [13], in force since January 1, 2016, introduced the possibility of regulating the legal status of real estate of land communities by re‐establishing which properties constitute land communities and re‐establishing the list of entities entitled to participate in the land community. This possibility was limited in time – the application should have been submitted by the end of 2016 at the latest. The procedure for regulating the legal status of real estate of land communities according to by the amended act on communities of land is presented in Figure 6 (on the interleaf)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
