The Regional Court in Poznań, in a case led by advocate Maciej Obrębski and attorney Artur Pietruszka, ruled that a manor and park complex in the Śrem District that was the pre-war property of the Law Firm’s client’s family did not fall under the provisions of Article 2(1)(a), (b), (c) and (d) of the 1944 Decree of the Polish Committee for National Liberation on the implementation of land reform.
The client came to the Law Office when it turned out that the proceedings to establish that the property did not fall under the provisions of the Decree had been discontinued by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. This was because a specific letter of Article 2(1) of the PKWN Decree was missing from the documents confirming that the property had been taken over by the State. This probably occurred as a result of a clerk’s error of almost 80 years ago.
It is worth noting that failure to fall under Article 2(1)(e) of the PKWN Decree (the so-called ‘area norm’) is established by the Governor in administrative proceedings. However, when it comes to letters a, b, c and d (among others, the premise of ‘German origin’ or conviction for high treason), it is necessary to take legal action in civil proceedings.
The law firm’s two-pronged approach resulted in a favourable outcome for the client. Firstly, the filed statement of claim was upheld in its entirety by the District Court in Poznań. It managed to prove that there were no prerequisites for taking over the real estate, and also to rebut arguments of the State Treasury, which questioned the legitimacy of the claim. Secondly, at the Law Firm’s request, the proceedings before the administrative court were suspended pending the outcome of the case before the Regional Court.
The ruling of the Regional Court in Poznań means that the only possible basis for taking over the property into the ownership of the State Treasury was the ‘area norm’. The administrative court will now rule on whether the real estate takeover was lawful.
In a number of cases handled by the Law Firm, the courts ruled that the manor-park or palace-park complex did not fall under the provisions of the agrarian reform decree.
