End of inheritance of municipal apartments. After the senior dies, the premises will have to be vacated

The death of a senior will mean the end of the right to housing. The government is preparing regulations that will overturn the current rules: a spouse, children or partner will not take over a municipal premises, and the commune will demand that it be vacated. The changes are intended to affect automatic inheritance of leases – even when loved ones are elderly and have nowhere to move.

What exactly is changing?
Why does the government want to abolish tenancy inheritance?
Senior lease: help or trap?
What will happen to the family after the tenant dies?
Voice of experts: need for correction
What’s next?

Draft regulations regarding senior lease marks the actual breakthrough: after the tenant’s death the contract will expireand loved ones – even your spouse – they will not take over the premises by operation of law. The commune will be obliged to demand that the apartment be vacated. This is a fundamental change compared to the previous rules, which allowed a family to “enter into a lease” automatically.

What exactly is changing?

The amendment to the Act on the Protection of Tenants’ Rights introduces: exclusion of the application of art. 691 of the Civil Code in the case of senior rental. This means that:

death of a senior ends the lease,
spouse, partner or children they do not engage in intercourse lease,
commune maybe, or even mustdemand to leave the premises.

As he explains Michał Modrolegal advisor and expert Business Center Club for senior policy is a consequence of the principles of public property management – the commune cannot “extend” contracts without a legal basis.

Why does the government want to abolish tenancy inheritance?

There is one official argument: social justice.
So far, a situation was possible in which:

a person with a very high income
she took over a municipal apartment only because she lived with her senior parent before his death.

The new regulations are intended to break with automation and ensure that municipal premises serve current needs housing, rather than securing the interests of the heirs.

Senior lease: help or trap?

Senior rental was supposed to be a solution for people 60+ who exchange their own apartment for a municipal premises:

on the ground floor or
in a building with an elevator,
adapted to age restrictions.

The problem is that the premises given to the commune must be the sole property of the senior.

Effects in practice:

senior marriages – excluded,
widows and widowers sharing inheritance with children – excluded,
most apartments purchased in the 1990s – co-ownershipso outside the program.

Experts say outright that under such conditions, senior leases may remain a dead recipe.

What will happen to the family after the tenant dies?

This is the most controversial element of the reform.

After the death of a senior, his or her spouse – even if he or she is elderly and disabled – will have to leave the premises.

Additionally:

The “old” senior apartment may already be available rented by the commune to a third party,
the procedure of regaining the right to your own premises may take time months,
in practice it means this risk of temporary homelessness.

Voice of experts: need for correction

Michał Modro proposes a compromise solution:

Restore the right to enter into a lease spouses or partners of the seniorwho are also over 60 years old.

On the other hand Hanna Milewska-Wilk With Institute for the Development of Cities and Regions cools emotions:

Municipal housing is not intended to inherit property, but to meet current housing needs.

What’s next?

The project is at the review stage, but its direction is clear:

end of automatic tenancy inheritance,
greater turnover of municipal premises,
greater legal uncertainty for seniors’ families.

If the regulations enter into force without changes, they will be one of the following the most restrictive reforms in the history of Polish municipal housing.