You can’t put this out in front of your house. Severe penalties up to PLN 1,000

It seems obvious that the boundary of a private property ends with the fence line, but as practice shows, not everyone respects the regulations. Many owners place flowers, Christmas decorations, election posters or boulders removed from the plot in front of the property fence. Trifle? Only apparently.

You can’t put this out in front of the fence

As the Local Government Portal reminds, such activities are illegal. Article 39 section 1 of the Act on Public Roads states that it is prohibited to “locate or place foreign devices, objects and materials unrelated to the needs of road management or road traffic needs.”

It is also worth remembering that leaving anything in front of the property fence may be dangerous, especially in winter. For example, snow-covered debris or plants may become covered with snow, making them invisible and may cause an accident.

The area right next to the fence is usually treated as the so-called road strip, which includes the road, sidewalk, shoulder and bicycle path. As Wirtualna Polska reminds, anyone who illegally places a flower pot or advertisement there must face a penalty of ten times the usual fee for the use of this land. In practice, this means that with a daily rate of PLN 100, the penalty for willfulness reaches as much as PLN 1,000 per day. Such high fines are assessed continuously until the day the disputed item is completely removed from the public space by the property owner.

The portal reminds that in order to legally use a piece of land in front of the house, you must first obtain written consent from the appropriate manager, which is usually the commune office. This permit is necessary not only for permanent structures, but also for the construction of an exit or temporary storage of construction materials on the roadside, and the lack of a document always results in the intervention of law enforcement services.