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I Inherited a House in Poland I've Never Even Seen: How to Sell It Without Ever Visiting

A lot of the inquiries we get from abroad start the same way: "I inherited a house in Łódź and I've genuinely never seen it." Your grandmother left Poland in the 1960s, your grandfather worked in the Łódź textile mills before emigrating, and somewhere along the way a flat or a family house passed down through people you may never have met. Now it's yours, on paper, and you're in Chicago or Manchester or Toronto wondering if you're supposed to get on a plane. You're not. The whole process, from confirming you're the heir to money landing in your account, can be handled without you ever setting foot in Poland.

Step 1: confirming you're actually the heir

Under Polish law, you acquire an inheritance automatically the moment the person dies, but that doesn't give you anything you can legally act on. Before you can sell, transfer, or even properly access the property, you need a formal document confirming your inheritance: either an akt poświadczenia dziedziczenia issued by a notary, if every heir agrees and is willing to sign, or a court order (postanowienie o stwierdzeniu nabycia spadku) if there's any dispute or an heir who can't be reached. If all the heirs are cooperative, the notary route is usually faster. If it has to go to court, a Polish lawyer can attend the hearing on your behalf with a power of attorney, so in most uncontested cases you're not required to appear yourself, even by video call.

Step 2: figuring out what you actually inherited

If you've never seen the property, you often don't know much more than a street address, or sometimes just a town. Before anything else, we check the Polish land registry (Księgi Wieczyste) to confirm what's actually registered: the exact size, whether it's a house, a share in a pre-war kamienica apartment, or a plot of land, and whether there's any debt or claim attached to it. For properties outside Łódź itself, in towns like Konstantynów Łódzki, Aleksandrów Łódzki, Zgierz, or Pabianice, this step also clarifies whether the land is properly surveyed and registered, which older rural or semi-rural plots sometimes aren't.

Step 3: the power of attorney that does the heavy lifting

Once the inheritance is confirmed, the actual sale happens in front of a Polish notary, and you don't need to be the one sitting across the table. A power of attorney (pełnomocnictwo), signed by you and naming a representative, lets someone else sign the notarial deed on your behalf. Getting it recognized in Poland takes two things: an apostille if you're in a country that's part of the Hague Apostille Convention (the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Germany, and most of the EU all qualify, a standard notarized apostille is enough), or full consular legalization if your country isn't part of that convention. Either way, it then needs an official translation into Polish by a sworn translator before it can be used at the notary's office. We walk clients through exactly what to sign and where to get it stamped, it's paperwork, not a legal maze, once you know the order of operations.

We had a client outside Aleksandrów Łódzki, a man in his fifties living near Manchester, whose grandfather had left a small house on the edge of town before the war. He'd visited Poland exactly once, as a child, and had no memory of the property at all, just a name on an old document his mother had kept. He assumed selling it meant flying over, hiring a translator, and spending weeks going back and forth with a Polish notary in person. In the end he signed one apostilled power of attorney at a solicitor's office near his home, we handled the land registry checks and the notary appointment from our side, and the sale closed without him ever booking a flight.

What you're not expected to do

You don't need to view the property before selling it. You don't need to clear out furniture, old letters, or decades of belongings left by a relative you may never have met, that's part of what we take on when we buy as-is. You don't need to arrange repairs, a leaking roof or an outdated electrical system doesn't need fixing first, it's priced into the offer instead. And if there are other heirs involved, one power of attorney can often cover coordinating with them too, so you're not the one chasing signatures across three time zones.

Honest terms if you decide to sell

• The price is 70-90% of market value, depending on the legal and physical condition.
• The valuation is always free, ready within 2 days of contact.
• Closing happens from 4 days after you accept the offer.
• Costs on your side: none. Any outstanding debt is settled directly out of the sale price.

If a property you've inherited in Poland feels like an abstract problem attached to a place you've never seen, that's normal, and it's not a reason to put it off. Tell us the address, or even just the town, and we'll tell you plainly what it would take to sell it without you ever getting on a plane.

Straight answers

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