2025-07-04 17:06
publication
2025-07-04 17:06
UOKiK punished six developers who misled consumers as to the actual area of the offered premises; The total penalty amounted to PLN 1.6 million – the office said on Friday. It is about calculating the area of apartments under the partition walls.
As indicated by the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, the greatest penalty was imposed on a Warsaw company JP Development Horizon Poznań – over PLN 1 million. Further decisions apply to companies Capitalia Real Estate goose from Lublin (nearly PLN 335,000), Gate Wilanowska PL and Śródmieście Wilanów PL from Warsaw (respectively: 100,000 and over PLN 56,000) and two companies from Wrocław – Space Investment Strzegomska 3 Otyńska (over PLN 46,000) and TN Stabłowice 1 (over PLN 20,000).
UOKiK pointed out that the decisions are not final, and entrepreneurs have already appealed against them to the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection.
The announcement indicates that consumers drew information about the offered apartments – i.e. location, schedule, number and size of rooms and a total area – from the cards of premises made available by developers, which in the case of the decision to buy real estate constituted an integral part of the contract. In the cards of five developers who were punished by UOKiK, partition walls were marked, but there was a lack of information about the size of the area under the partition walls, despite the fact that it was counted to the surface of the residential premises. “As a consequence, the consumer could not determine what part of the price the price for the area under the partition walls was,” the office pointed out.
He added that they remained from the developers, Despite the information contained on the pages of the premises under the partition walls, it did not include this area into the total area of the residential premises specified in the development agreement.
“As a consequence, consumers received false information as to the area and prices of the premises (smaller area – lower price). Then, by concluding a contract transferring ownership, they had to make subsidies for the area under the walls suitable for dismantling” – explained the office.
He also pointed out that the UOKiK president of UOKiK checked the part of his development industry monitoring what construction standards use entrepreneurs, how they interpret them, how they measure the area of apartments and houses, and how they inform consumers about taking into account the area under the partition walls. The study covered entities included in the 20 largest capital groups on the development market.
“Entrepreneurs are in the process of implementing new requirements, assuming primarily clear and legible provision of information. Due to the diverse practices of developers on the market, the assessment of individual activities of entrepreneurs – how they implemented the amended provisions – it will be possible as part of the President of the UOKiK of the President up to 10 percent of trading ” – also informed UOKiK.
On Friday, the President of UOKiK Tomasz Chróstny sent to the Minister of Funds and Regional Policy Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz a letter, in which he indicated, among others, that he shares the postulate of not taking into account the space in the usable area of the premises under the partition walls and clarifying the provisions in this respect. Sending a letter regarding the developers including partition walls in the usable area of the Płczyńska-Nałęcz premises on the portal X on Monday.
The President of UOKiK noted, however, that the competent authority in this matter is the Minister of Development and Technology, which has legislative competences in the field of building regulations, in particular by issuing a regulation determining the scope of application of standards.
“We are ready to support all initiatives in this subject that will increase the scope of consumer protection and clarity of measuring the area of residential premises offered by developers,” wrote Chróstny.
He added that the method of measuring the usable area results from the implementation provisions to the construction law, determining the scope and form of the construction project, and the minister competent for construction (currently MRIT) is responsible for them. These provisions refer to the Polish Construction Standards, and the competent authority in terms of these standards is the Polish Committee of Standardization (PKN).
“The problem is that executive provisions refer to the content of the currently issued standard, which may change in the future (in the past has already been subject to appropriate changes). (…) The minister has no direct impact on the content of the standards issued by PKN, but is the author of executive provisions related to their application. To avoid any doubts, it would be worth considering the principles of counting the area of counting the area under the partitions under division walls. directly to the content of executive regulations ” – explained Chróstny. (PAP)
(We plan to continue the topic)
BPK/ Mick/
