If you’ve just bought an apartment in Poland, it should quickly come to your attention that you have to pay monthly communal fees. This is the czynsz administracyjny bill.
“Czynsz administracyjny” or “czynsz najmu“?
As the name czynsz administracyjny suggests, it’s an administrative fee that has been adopted as a definition of the sum of benefits and fees to be paid by apartment owners to the accounts of property management companies or members of housing co-operatives on their behalf.
People in Poland are used to bandying about the word “czynsz”. However, they might not always be referring to the czynsz administracyjny bill.
There’s also czynsz najmu. This is the actual rental fee determined by the property owner, minus the monthly communal costs.
Breaking down my czynsz administracyjny bill
My monthly czynsz administracyjny bill for May 2024 came to 877,86 zl. This is for a 75 m2 flat.
Unfortunately, my property management company has added an extra 249,11 zł to my communal fees due to maintenance costs connected with the garage hall. I have two parking spaces and a storage unit (komórka lokatorska).
In the image above, you may see a breakdown of the monthly communal fees I have to cover. These include:
Centralne ogrzewanie – opłata stała – Central heating – standing charge
Zimna woda i ścieki – Cold water and canalisation
Konserwacja wind – Lift maintenance
Fundusz remontowy – Renovation fund
Monitoring – Video Surveillance
Summary
In the summer of 2023, it came to light that the administrator of our building had driven our mini-community of three buildings deep into debt. Hence, residents united to kick out this company and bring in a new administrator. With the new appointment, communal fees rose. Considering that I’d been used to paying around 540-650 zl per month for around four years, having to pay 882,80 zl (the cost of fees between the summer of 2023 and April 2024) was somewhat financially burdensome. However, this figure may have been realistic because residents had underpaid for many years, hence the massive debt that had accrued.
Updating this post in May 2024, it appears as if I will have to pay in excess of 1,100 zł every month. Gdańsk is Gdańsk. However, this fee is nothing short of daylight robbery in my opinion. Communal fees have risen by 28% from April to May 2024, and a whopping 109% since 2019.
I have to contend with yet another sudden increase in my cost of living. It no longer makes financial sense for my wife and me to live in such a large flat. I do rent one of my parking spaces for 240 zł a month but even this doesn’t make up for the extortionate communal fees I have to pay. What’s more, I’m no longer satisfied with the state of the building I live in. It’s getting dirtier and dirtier.
If you’re looking at buying a flat in Poland to live in or indeed as a buy-to-let investment, I believe that you and your tenants will be satisfied with the transparency and relative inexpensiveness of communal charges. Obviously, things are not functioning as they should do where I live. I’m simply one of the unfortunate ones who has to pay for the mess other people have created.