Wozniak Legal has successfully represented the owners of the Bernardynska 9 tenement house in Lublin against claims from a Polish party regarding adverse possession in relation to a 50% share of this building.
According to the firm, "the claimant purchased 50% of the building in 1989 and was the legal holder of his share," while trying to acquire ownership of the remaining 50% of the building through an adverse possession case. "The defendants (who are the heirs of the pre-war owners currently living in America) have never abandoned the building and wanted the claim to be dismissed. They argued that the disputed building belonged to their family for many decades (even during the communist era). Although they live in America and visit Poland rarely, they want to keep this property as part of the Jewish heritage in Poland," the firm informed.
According to Wozniak Legal, "on November 9, 2022, the Court of Appeal in Lublin upheld the decision of the court of the first instance issued in 2021 and finally decided that the adverse possession claims towards the property at Bernardynska 9 in Lublin should be dismissed as unfounded. This brought an end to the five-year proceedings in the Polish courts regarding this building. This historic tenement house is in the heart of Lublin. Before the Second World War, it belonged to the Langman family and Mandelbaum family."
"A claim of adverse possession is a mixed question of law and fact. Therefore, these cases are very complicated, especially in the situation where one co-owner is trying to acquire the ownership of the other co-owner," Wozniak Legal Partner Filip Kowalczyk commented.
The Wozniak Legal team was led by Kowalczyk.
