Deal Direct with Agents and Sellers on the Secondary Market
Home > Property Guide > Common Terms and Concepts of the Polish Property Market
Common Terms and Concepts of the Polish Property Market
|
This is an active list of common terms and concepts that you will come across and we are building it based on the feedback of buyers. If you think we have missed something please Contact Us and we will add it to this page Cellar Storage Cupboard - Most apartment blocks have a basement floor that is split into storage cupboards, one or more for each flat. These are useful places to keep bicycles, sledges, tools, etc. Anything you don't want cluttering up the flat. For this reason even an apartment on the tenth storey may often have a cellar storage cupboard listed in the description Fireplace Heating - You will often see on property details a phrase such as 'central heating is via a gas boiler or the main fireplace'. This is especially common in houses where the fireplace in the reception room is connected to a system of warm air ducts that carry the warm air throughout the property. So when a Polish person says their fireplace heats the whole of a 7 roomed house, he is probably not boasting, it's true! Mains / Town / Estate hot water and heating - Many apartments, and even some houses, have their hot water and central heating piped in from a central boiler via underground piping. This is still popular as it means each flat or house does not have to have its own boiler with the associated safety and maintenance issues. New House, Mature Garden .... ? - Many foreign buyers have questioned how a house built this year could have a 'mature garden'. Its like this .... Wealth in Poland is new but it has been growing rapidly for over 15 years. Many Poles buy land with planning permission to build even though they do not have the money to construct the property. Then, over the years, they will gradually build a house as money allows. Normally, due to constraints in their budgets they will plant the garden first. Building a house in this way can take up to ten years and for this reason by the time the house is finished, the garden is already mature! Recreational Houses - See About Polish Houses Recreational Land - See About Polish Land Reinforced front door - This is a door usually with a steel sheet inside to provide extra security. Not all properties have them so if it is not stated in the description its worth checking with the owner or agent. If yours does not they are straightforward to purchase. Rooms and Bedrooms - There is a very important difference in the way that the Polish and many others in Europe view their properties when it comes to rooms and bedrooms. The Polish talk in terms of 'rooms' so a 4 roomed apartment is, in English terms, a 3 bedroomed apartment (the fourth 'room' is the reception room). With houses this may mean a big difference. A 5 roomed house may include a reception room and a separate dining room so, in English terms, it is a 3 bedroomed house. Summer Kitchens / Two Kitchens - A number of properties, especially houses, make reference to a second kitchen or "Summer Kitchen". This is because many two storey houses were and are built with a ground or lower ground floor which is designed for storage use, perhaps with a garage and often with a kitchen. The second kitchen is used during the summer for making cheese, smoking meats, pickling vegetables, stewing jam, and so on. This kitchen is usually sparsely decorated and purely for functional use. It may have a flooring or painted concrete screeding and sometimes tiled walls along with cabinets and a stove or hob and oven. 
See Also:
About Polish Property |
