On April 24, 2025, the Parliament passed an act amending the Act of May 20, 2021, on the Protection of the Rights of the Buyer of a Residential Unit or a Single-Family House and the Developer Guarantee Fund (“Developer Act”). The amending act has been forwarded for further proceedings by the Senate and the President.
The amendment to the Developer Act obliges developers to maintain their website, on which, from the date sales begin until the date of transfer of ownership of the last property or part thereof covered by the development project or investment task, the following must be made available:
- the general part of the information prospectus regarding the development project or investment task;
- information on:
- the developer’s registered office address or, in the case of a natural person, the address of their principal place of business,
- the address of the premises where sales are conducted,
- methods of contacting the developer,
- the location of the development project or investment task,
- the price per square meter of usable floor space for each offered residential unit or single-family house, as well as the price of the entire property or its part that is for sale (including VAT),
- the price of ancillary premises, as referred to in Article 2(4) of the Act of June 24, 1994, on the Ownership of Premises, or rights necessary to use the residential unit or single-family house, if their price is not included in the aforementioned property price (including VAT),
- other monetary benefits the buyer must provide to the developer under the ownership transfer agreement (including VAT).
Importantly, in the event of discrepancies between the price listed by the developer in the manner described above and the price offered at the time of signing the agreement, the buyer will have the right to demand the sale at the most favourable price.
According to the amending act, developers will also be required to:
- update the information on their website, including the date of the change, on the day of any price or monetary benefit changes, while preserving previously disclosed information from the start of the sales period;
- Include the website address where the above information can be found in advertisements, announcements, and sales offers directed to buyers.
The amended provisions will apply both to developers as defined in Article 3(1) of the Developer Act and to entrepreneurs other than developers who enter into agreements with buyers concerning properties resulting from the execution of a development project or investment task, where the transfer of rights under these agreements to the buyer occurs for the first time (Article 4(1) of the Developer Act).
Developers and other entrepreneurs who began or will begin sales before the amended act enters into force will be required to comply with its requirements within 2 months from its effective date. In such cases, the required information must be provided for residential units and single-family houses whose ownership has not been transferred to buyers before the new act’s effective date, based on the status as of the date the information is made available on the website.
The amending act is set to enter into force one month after its publication.
Additionally, on April 30, 2025, another draft amendment to the Developer Act was submitted to the Marshal of the Sejm. It aims to unambiguously regulate buyers’ entitlements under warranty for defects based on provisions of the Civil Code.
The proposed amendment is intended to eliminate the legal loophole regarding the possibility of reporting defects to the developer under warranty in the case of:
- development agreements;
- agreements on establishing separate ownership of a residential unit and transferring ownership of the unit and rights necessary to use it to the buyer;
- agreements on transferring ownership of a residential unit and the rights necessary to use it to the buyer;
- agreements on transferring ownership of real estate developed with a single-family house or the perpetual usufruct of land and ownership of a house constituting a separate property, or transferring fractional ownership of such property along with exclusive rights to use parts of it for residential purposes;
- agreements concerning commercial premises, as referred to in Article 2(2) of the Developer Act.
Legal status as of May 5, 2025