Compensation proceedings take a long time and recently have also become expensive.
Irrespectively of the expenses incurred for the valuation surveys to prove the value of real estate claimed in compensation proceedings, drawn up by the contracted appraisers or irrespectively of the expenses incurred for the opinions of associations of appraisers drawn up during the course of administrative proceedings, we should also account for the more and more common judicial opinions given to the disadvantage of the ex-owners of expropriated real estates, maintaining that appeals against decisions of administrative authorities of second instance to provincial administrative courts shall be charged with a fee in proportion to the value of the real estate claimed rather than with a fixed fee.
In practice, it shall mean that if a party disagrees with the amount of compensation for the expropriated real estate, e.g. land of an area of 2,0000 hectares (i.e. 20,000 sq. meters) set by the authorities based on the market value of 28 PLN per sq. meter, and thus, if the party demands the assumption of the market value of the real estate at the level of 45 PLN per sq. meter, then the fee calculated in proportion to the value claimed shall amount to 3,400 PLN. The fee has been calculated as follows: the amount of compensation that the party claims – 900,000 PLN minus the amount of compensation set in the administrative proceedings that is minus 560,000 PLN; the difference is multiplied by 1% (i.e. 0.01).
In other words, the proportional fee in the aforementioned case is 1% of the amount claimed by the ex-owner (that is 340,000 PLN). It must also be remembered that not in every case the 1% multiplier for the calculation of the fee is applied, depending on the amount of the dispute, 2%, 3% or 4% multipliers may be applied.
Should a fixed fee apply with respect to appeals to provincial administrative court, then 200 PLN would be charged upon any appeal irrespectively of the amount claimed by the ex-owner be it 1,000 PLN, 100,000 PLN or 500,000 PLN.
As a result of the above, many people do not proceed with their appeals with provincial administrative courts. In many cases ex-owners do not want to risk losing several thousand PLN.
Note: resolution of the Supreme Administrative Court of 3 October 2016, I OPS 1/16; § 1 of regulation of the Council of Ministers of 16 December 2003 on the amounts and detailed principles of charging fees in proceedings before administrative courts (Journal of Laws 2003, No 221, item 2193, as amended).