How to Reject an Inheritance in Poland: Debts, Deadlines, and Minors
How to Reject an Inheritance in Poland
In Poland, inheriting means inheriting everything — the apartment, the car, the bank accounts, and the debts. If the deceased owed more than they owned, accepting the inheritance makes you personally liable for their obligations. Rejection is the only clean exit, but it must happen within a strict six-month window with no extensions.
The Six-Month Deadline
Every heir has exactly six months from the date they learned of their inheritance to formally accept or reject it. For most heirs, this clock starts on the date of death. For heirs who didn't know about the death (or about a will naming them), it starts when they learn of their entitlement.
After six months of inaction, Polish law defaults to acceptance with benefit of inventory (dobrodziejstwo inwentarza). This limits your debt liability to the net value of the inherited assets — better than unlimited acceptance, but you still lose everything you inherited to creditors if the debts exceed the assets.
Three Options
Simple acceptance (przyjęcie proste): You inherit everything — assets and debts — with unlimited personal liability. Almost never advisable unless you're certain the estate has no hidden debts.
Acceptance with benefit of inventory (przyjęcie z dobrodziejstwem inwentarza): Your liability for the deceased's debts is capped at the value of the inherited assets. If the estate has 100,000 PLN in assets and 150,000 PLN in debts, you're liable for only 100,000 PLN. This is the automatic default if you do nothing.
Rejection (odrzucenie spadku): You walk away completely. No assets, no debts, no involvement. Your share passes to the next person in the statutory succession order — usually your children.
How to Reject
File a formal declaration of rejection before either:
- A Polish notary (faster, costs 50-100 PLN)
- The district court (Sąd Rejonowy) of your residence or the deceased's last residence
The declaration must be filed within the six-month window. It cannot be undone except in extremely narrow circumstances (fraud, coercion, or fundamental error about the estate's composition — proven in court).
If you're abroad, you can reject before a notary in your home country, but the declaration must be apostilled and translated into Polish by a sworn translator, then filed with the appropriate Polish court or notary.
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The Minor Child Trap
When an adult heir rejects an inheritance, their share automatically passes down to their minor children. Those children now have their own six-month window to accept or reject — and since they can't make legal decisions, their parents must act on their behalf.
The simplified notarial path: Both parents can reject the inheritance on behalf of their minor child directly at a notary if all three conditions are met:
- The parent through whom the child inherited has already formally rejected
- Both parents hold full parental authority and agree on the decision
- They act within six months of the parent's own rejection
Cost: approximately 100-150 PLN. The child doesn't need to attend.
The court path: If the parents are divorced, disagree, or don't share joint parental authority, they must petition the guardianship court (sąd opiekuńczy) for permission to reject on the child's behalf. Filing fee: 100 PLN per child.
Critical detail: filing the court petition suspends the minor's six-month deadline. The clock pauses while the court proceedings are active and resumes only after the court's permission decree becomes final. This prevents the deadline from expiring while waiting for the court to act.
The Benefit-of-Inventory Trap
Many heirs choose benefit of inventory thinking it provides full protection. It limits your liability, but it comes with an obligation: you must submit a complete and honest inventory of the estate's assets and liabilities to the court or notary.
If a creditor later proves you intentionally omitted known assets, undervalued property, or concealed debts in the inventory, you lose the limited liability protection entirely. You become personally and unlimitedly liable for all of the deceased's debts — the same position as simple acceptance.
This catches families who try to hide assets or understate property values to minimize their tax reporting.
Practical Considerations
Check before you decide. Investigate the estate's financial position before the six-month deadline. Request bank statements, check for outstanding loans, review tax obligations. The Centralna Informacja system can search for bank accounts across all Polish institutions.
Rejection cascades. When you reject, your share passes to your children, then to their children, then to other relatives in the statutory order. Each person in the chain gets their own six-month window. For large families, this cascade of rejections can take years to resolve.
You can't cherry-pick. Rejection is all-or-nothing. You can't reject the debts and keep the apartment. If you want the apartment but the estate has net debts, acceptance with benefit of inventory is the safer middle ground.
The Someone Died in Poland guide includes an inheritance decision framework, a debt assessment worksheet, and step-by-step instructions for filing rejection declarations — including templates for the minor child court petition.
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