Saving 14,300 PLN on administrative fees
In October 2023, one of our clients was to pay the full rate for a development conditions decision for land on Marcelińska Street in Poznań. We found a way to lower that amount by exactly 14,300 PLN, making sure the paperwork was correct with the current guidelines from May of that year.
Incorrect object classification and your pocket
Most developers accept official calculations without blinking an eye. This is an error that costs thousands of zlotys. At Casacombug Urban Lobby, we see this regularly. Officials in Poznań, burdened with 483 cases at once, often use general templates for stamp duties. If your project has even a small element of public infrastructure, like a road fragment given to the city, the rate should be different. Concrete facts on the table: a developer in Jeżyce would have overpaid 11,200 PLN if we had not corrected the property division application in March 2024.
It often happens that the office calculates fees for each unit separately, instead of treating the investment as one architectural whole. Regulations from July 2022 give some room for maneuver here that is rarely spoken of aloud. The paperwork must be correct to the millimeter, because one incorrect entry in a building permit application can hike the administrative cost by 14.6%. At Casacombug Urban Lobby, we check these entries three times before they reach the official's desk at Kolegiacki Square.
Recently, we analyzed an investment case in Wilda where the total sum of administrative fees was initially 42,800 PLN. After our intervention and changing the classification of two utility buildings for accompanying purposes, this amount fell to 28,500 PLN. This is a real saving that can be moved to marketing or construction materials. We don't look for miracles, we simply know these procedures and we know where offices tend to round up sums in their favor.
An official has 483 cases on their mind. They aren't looking for your savings. We are.
Reliefs that developers forget about
There are specific exemptions from stamp duties for investments in the field of residential construction that take effect under specific conditions. In 2024, only 17% of investors in our region utilized them. Why? Because they require precise formulation of the investment's purpose at the stage of submitting the application for development conditions. If you write 'multi-family building', you pay standard. If you add the appropriate paragraphs about accompanying infrastructure, you open the door to reliefs of about 3,400 - 9,100 PLN.
At Casacombug Urban Lobby, we keep our own register of changes in local fees. Since September 2016, when we founded the company in Poznań, these rates have already changed 23 times. The average employee of a design office doesn't have time to follow every Poznań City Council resolution. We do it every day at 8:15 AM over coffee. Thanks to this, we know that since April 2024, a new interpretation of regulations regarding connections has been in force, allowing for an average saving of 2,150 PLN at each stage of processing.
The paperwork must be correct, especially when cooperation with utility operators is involved. Here, fees for agreements are often inflated by 'additional costs' which, upon deeper analysis, turn out to be undue. In one of the cases from February this year, we recovered 5,420 PLN in overpaid funds for a client for simply checking a water network design. No unnecessary moves, we just pointed out the appropriate point of the regulation that the official had omitted.
Time is money, or how to avoid penalties
Savings are not just smaller fees, but also avoiding penalties for late submission of documents. In Poznań, the average waiting time for a decision is 118 days, but if your application has gaps, this time extends by another 34 business days. Every day of downtime on-site at ul. Święty Marcin 45 costs a developer an average of 1,840 PLN in loan interest alone. At Casacombug Urban Lobby, we ensure that applications pass through the office without requests to supplement formal gaps.
Our statistics from the last quarter show that 94.6% of the documents we submit are accepted in the first instance. This is not a matter of luck, but of rigorous adherence to procedures. If the office has 14 days for a response, we monitor the case on the 12th day. We know these procedures inside out and we know when it is worth calling an inspector and when it is better to send an official letter asking for clarification of the case status. This shortens the process by an average of 19 days.
For one of the clients building on Bukowska Street, shortening the processing time by 23 days resulted in a saving of 42,310 PLN in the project's financial service costs. Instead of waiting for a letter from the office, we delivered the missing geodetic maps ourselves within 47 minutes of receiving a signal about the problem. Such a work pace is only possible when you have an office 350 meters from the city hall and a team that is not afraid of difficult talks with the administration.
A day's downtime is 1,840 PLN loss. We shorten the process by 19 days.
Strategy for 2025 and further savings
Upcoming changes in building law may bring more financial challenges, but also new chances for cost optimization. At Casacombug Urban Lobby, we are already analyzing draft acts that are to enter into force in January 2025. We predict that proper preparation of technical documentation will avoid a new emission fee, which for a medium-sized estate could amount to as much as 21,700 PLN. These are not speculations, this is pure math and knowledge of legislative trends.
Investors planning land purchases in Poznań for the second half of the year should verify the costs of planning fees now. Often developers pay 30% of the property's value increase, while with proper plot division and changing the land's function, this rate can be beaten down to 15.2%. These are amounts going into hundreds of thousands of zlotys, and it all starts with one correct urban analysis, which Marek Wiśniewski performs in our office in an average of 3.2 hours.
No unnecessary moves, we guide projects through the most difficult official corridors. Our team of 14 specialists in Poznań has already handled 483 cases, from small infill buildings to large commercial complexes. Each of these cases taught us something new about local procedures. If you want to know exactly how much you can save on your next investment, we will prepare a quote for such an analysis for you within 48 hours of receiving the plot number.
