Higher apartment fees? The new regulations will affect landlords and short-term rentals

Owners of commercial premises and apartments intended for short-term rental may pay higher fees to housing communities in the future. The draft amendment to the Act on the ownership of premises assumes the possibility of charging additional costs to owners whose method of using the property results in higher expenses related to the maintenance of the common parts of the building.

New regulations

The project envisages adding a provision that will allow property owners to adopt a resolution changing the method of dividing the costs of maintaining common property. This will be possible when differences in the way the premises are used justify higher expenses. The condition for applying the new rules is to prepare cost calculations.

The changes will apply primarily to service premises and short-term apartments. Increased customer traffic or frequent turnover of guests may mean faster wear and tear of elevators, staircases, intercoms or parking lots. In such cases, communities incur higher costs of cleaning, repairs and renovations, which are currently financed by all owners of the premises.

However, the project does not give communities full freedom to raise fees. Any increase will have to be justified by actual additional costs resulting from the use of the premises. They will also need to be documented. The expenses that may be included include: more frequent cleaning, intercom repairs, facade renovations, parking lot maintenance and higher insurance premiums.

Maintenance costs

However, experts point out that it may be very difficult to precisely determine the costs generated by a specific owner. They believe this could lead to court disputes. One solution could be to establish flat-rate fees by way of a community resolution.

As the Local Government Portal points out, the new regulations are primarily intended to more fairly distribute the costs of maintaining common parts of buildings. At the same time, it was emphasized that the planned increases are not to be high, but to correspond to the actual expenses incurred by the community. For example, if the monthly cost of cleaning a staircase increases from PLN 500 to PLN 750 due to the operation of a commercial premises or short-term rental, the difference could be attributed to the owner of such premises.