Senior rental is coming. You will be able to apply for an apartment with facilitated access from the municipal resources

The introduction of a senior lease agreement, which will allow the elderly to apply for a premises with easier access from the resources of the commune – provides the bill published on Friday. This is to solve the problem of the so -called prisoners of the fourth floor.

The phrase “prisoners of the fourth floor” refers to older people who live on the upper floors of buildings, and because of the advanced age or health problems, they cannot leave their own apartments.

Their problem is to be resolved by the Act on the amendment of the Act on the Protection of Tenants' Rights, the housing stock of the commune and amending the Civil Code, whose project was published on Friday on the website of the Government Legislation Center.

The designed changes include the introduction of a senior lease agreement. This solution has provide the elderly, living alone, and owned by premises located on the upper floors of buildings without an elevator (from the 3rd floor and up), the possibility of applying for a premises from the housing resource of the commune, located on the ground floor or on the higher floor, but in a building equipped with an elevator. The condition will be the simultaneous rental of the premises in which they lived so far, and which the municipality will be able to sublet to people waiting for the rental of a municipal premises.

If the senior resigns from renting a flat belonging to the commune, the apartment being owned will be returned to him, and if he dies – the apartment will remain in the estate.

As indicated in the justification of the bill, seniors will not have to meet the income criterion in force in a given commune at a “standard” lease agreement for the premises included in the commune's housing resource, because renting seniors for such premises will not result from their difficult financial situation, and restrictions in everyday life, caused by difficult access to premises located on higher floors.

Currently – which was noted in the assessment of the effects of regulation – Municipalities can rent a municipal apartment to the elderly, but only those who do not have the right to ownership for their apartment, with the largest scale of the problem of “prisoners of the fourth floor” just affect the elderly with ownership apartments.

There are nearly 9.9 million in Poland, which is 26.3 percent. population. According to the forecast of the Central Statistical Office, the share of such people in the total population of Poland in 2050 is to constitute about 40 percent.

For the need to adapt flats to the needs of the elderly, including the liquidation of architectural barriers and the adaptation and construction of apartments intended for seniors, the author of the project has repeatedly pointed out, the former minister for senior policy, currently the Secretary of State in the Prime Minister of KPRM Dreams Okła-Drewnowicz.

The project is at the stage of arrangements, public consultations and opinions.

Katarzyna Czarnecka (PAP)

KSC/ Jann/