Polish Mortgage in 10 Steps

Do you plan to take a mortgage in Poland? Our guide should help you to understand what steps await you in the process. To make your life easier, we recommend taking all these steps with us, via a free mortgage brokerage service.

Step 1 - Assess Your Budget

At first, you need to determine what is the maximum property price you could aim for.

There are numerous rules to creditability in Poland, and each bank looks at it their way, hence the differences can go to even hundreds of thousands of PLN.

You can either check at each bank the maximum mortgage amount they can offer in your specific situation or use a broker with access to all banks.

Step 2 - Check Banks’ Offers

Once you determined how much of the mortgage you will need to take, it is time to check which offers from banks suits you the best.

Most importantly you need to check the price, not only the interest rate, but also any additional costs, to have a full picture of differences between banks.

On top of that, you should consider all the rules connected to each bank, to not be surprised with anything once your mortgage is running, like having penalties for lack of transfer to account, etc.

Step 3 - Find a Property

You know your future mortgage cost - now is the time to find your perfect property.

Start by determining your main criteria, like property size, number of rooms, do you want it from the developer or second-hand, and then target your research accordingly. A golden rule: the more research - the better.

While searching for the property, you will find many differences between Poland and your country, which can influence your original goals.

Step 4 - Sign Pre-Agreement

Once you found the property, and negotiated its final price - the next step is to sign a preliminary purchase agreement.

The pre-agreement is an important document - it is required to proceed with the mortgage application and the property appraisal.

It also determines the rules between you and the seller, how much of the deposit you need to pay, and how much will be returnable if the deal does not go through - make sure to make it as favorable as possible for yourself.

Step 5 - Gather Documents

Pre-agreement is signed, and time to gather the rest of the documentation required for the mortgage application.

Even though the documentation needed is mostly the same across banks, there are some differences, like some banks asking for monthly bank statements, some only salary receipts, some for address registration, and some not.

The financial documentation will also differ depending on your income, you will need to either provide a form filled and signed by your employer, or accounting documents of your company, and so on.

Step 6 - Order Property Appraisal

The property appraisal is another crucial step - it will determine the market value of the purchased property.

The appraiser might set a price below, under, or the same as the sale price. The number they provide will have a significant effect on your mortgage application, as sometimes it might require more upfront to reach the LTV (loan-to-value) level the bank requires.

Due to that, we recommend ordering the appraisal before submitting the mortgage application - to avoid any surprises later in the process.

Step 7 - Apply for the Mortgage

You gathered all the documentation about yourself and the property, so now you are ready to submit the mortgage application.

The process differs between the banks: some banks prefer to do everything remotely, but some require you to sign paper documentation. Some banks will ask you to pre-apply, and then once they pre-accept you - apply again.

As with all other steps, it would be helpful to use a broker to manage this part of the process for you.

Step 8 - Track the Bank’s decision

As with previous steps, this one will also vary between banks. Generally, if you managed to submit a complete application following all specific bank requirements, the bank analyst should have all they need to provide mortgage decisions.

However, the bank might ask questions about your documents, or request more.

This part of the process can take 2-8 weeks, depending on various factors.

Step 9 - Finalize the Purchase

The bank’s decision is positive - congratulations! Now, the bank will send you the mortgage agreement to check if all is correct - please go through it in detail. After that, the bank will schedule a meeting to sign it.

In most cases, if you do not speak Polish - banks will require a sworn translator to be present at the signature meeting.

Subsequently, at the notary, you will need to sign the final sales agreement and provide it to the bank for mortgage to be released.

Step 10 - Update the Property Register

The last step is updating the property register with your and the bank’s name. Usually, the notary submits a request to the local court as part of their service, but in some cases, it needs to be done by you.

It takes one visit to the local court (assuming you gathered the correct documentation) and costs 200 PLN.

Once the property register is updated, which can take a few months, you need to bring confirmation to the bank, and you can consider the mortgage process finalized.

Thank you!

We hope this short process description will help you to have a better understanding of the Polish mortgage process.

Please note that none of the steps we explained have to be taken by you without any assistance. In Poland, it is common to use the service of a mortgage broker, who can manage the whole process for you.

The broker’s service is free of charge, as was settled by the legal regulations - parliament established brokers to represent customers’ interests in front of the banks.

Best regards,

Loan-brokers.pl Team