Evictions – Supreme Court ruling confirms municipality’s responsibility for lack of temporary accommodation
On January 21, 2011, the Supreme Court in the case of III CZP 120/10 adopted a resolution in which it determined that the municipality may be liable to the owner of the premises on the basis of the Act 417 § 1 of the Civil Code for the damage caused by the failure to designate the temporary premises referred to in the acticle 1047 § 4 of the code of civil procedure. Recall that the case concerns eviction and two possible eviction judgments.
1) Firstly, the court may grant social housing to tenants (among others, unemployed, invalids, welfare recipients, etc.). Then the eviction is suspended until the municipality (and only the municipality) offers social housing to the evicted, which in practice can take many years. For this time, the legislature explicitly provided for the possibility of demanding compensation from the municipality, which many owners are taking advantage of, suing municipalities en masse in the courts.
2) In the second option, the court may order eviction without the right to social housing. Then its execution is easier, because the bailiff will execute the eviction if the debtor (evicted), the creditor (owner of the premises) or the municipality indicates the so-called temporary room (a room with an area of 3 m2 per inhabitant, meeting the most basic criteria set out in the regulation – for more on temporary housing, see the article of Tomasz Przybecki).
In the case of temporary housing, there has so far been disagreement as to whether the municipality’s obligation to provide it is unconditional, and whether the municipality is liable in damages for failure to provide temporary housing. This state of legal uncertainty meant that, paradoxically, many landlords preferred the granting of social housing la their tenants, which, while postponing the actual eviction ad calendas graecas, offered the certainty of compensation from the municipality in the amount of the market rent that could be achieved for the premises in question.
The cited Supreme Court resolution will perhaps restore the natural state of affairs and increase the number of evictions adjudicated without the right to social housing, which should become a serious incentive for municipalities to act vigorously to obtain temporary premises.