Registering rights derived from acts between spouses

Would the Land Registry make changes in ownership’s entry (proprietorship) on the bases of acts performed between the spouses?

The land and mortgage registers will make changes in the second (II) section on the basis of the following documents: a notarial deed, a court decision (judgment or order).

Without the application of any of the spouses, even in the event of changes in their relationship, resulting from divorce or related division of joint property by agreement or court ruling, land and mortgage registers do not make any changes to ownership of the land and mortgage register maintained for the property that was previously jointly owned marital property. The sphere of action between the spouses, both during and after the marriage, as a result of divorce or death of one of them, is independent of the real property rights arising from the property. Changes in land and mortgage registers only take place upon application and on the basis of the aforementioned documents, i.e. a contract or a court order. If the division of property occurs simultaneously with the divorce, this division will be included in the divorce judgment of the court competent to adjudicate on divorce (district court), which is a rare situation. The most common division of property follows a divorce decree, takes place before a district court and is adjudicated in the form of a joint property distribution. In the event of an arbitrary division of the property of the spouses before a notary in the form of a notarial deed, a final divorce judgment will be enforced.

In the case of property contracts between spouses during the marriage, the land and mortgage register also only upon the application and on the basis of a marriage contract attached to it, at which a notary’s marriage certificate will be submitted, will amend the content of the second chapter of the booking book kept for the property covered by the contract.

Ownership of real property entered in the land and mortgage register for one of the spouses, regardless of the basis of its acquisition (eg inheritance, purchase, acquisition by auction) can be extended to the other spouses after the marriage is concluded by way of a matrimonial property agreement. A marriage certificate should be submitted to the notary public to conclude such an agreement. The land and mortgage registers will make an appropriate entry in favor of both spouses on the basis of a contract attached to the application for entry of a change in department II of the land and mortgage register kept until now solely on one of the spouses.

The owner of the real estate, regardless of the method of its acquisition (eg inheritance, donation or purchase) entering into marriage, remains the sole owner of the property. The change of marital status does not automatically change the ownership of the property owned by that person. If the owner wants the spouse to become a co-owner of the property, he may go to a notary and draw up a contract in the form of a notary act together with the spouse. It will be a matrimonial property agreement extending, under which a property previously owned by one of the spouses will become co-owning together with the other spouse, on the marital property of the marital property. The documents needed to draw up such an agreement are a civil-status record, which is a copy of the marriage certificate. On the basis of the notarial deed, the land and mortgage registers will change the owner in the land and mortgage register from the previous one to the spouses.

If, on the other hand, the previous owner, after marriage, sells the property himself and wants to buy another property, he can do it only on himself, despite the fact that he is already married. The capital from the sale of the previous real estate is his personal property and he can do what he thinks of it without the consent of the other spouse. It may also, after selling a property, buy a new property with his spouse and make a contract in a notarial deed to buy a record that funds for the purchase of common property come from his personal property after the sale of the property being his exclusive property. The documents needed to draw up such an agreement are a civil-status record, which is a copy of the marriage certificate. On the basis of the notarial deed, the land and mortgage registers will change the owner in the land and mortgage register from the previous one to the spouses.

The Polish property law does not distinguish between the ownership of the house and the ownership of the land on which it is located. Everything that is permanently associated with the land is owned by the owner of the land. There is no situation in which another person inherits only a family home, and another person lands beneath it.

Polish law does not provide for legalized partnerships.