Housing cooperatives fear they will be unable to ban short-term rentals

A Polish government bill intended to let housing cooperatives ban short-term rentals could leave them unable to use that power, according to legal experts cited by Rzeczpospolita.

The proposed amendment to the law on hotel services and tour guides would allow a cooperative’s general meeting to prohibit hotel services in properties it manages. But the draft says the resolution must pass with more than 50% of the number of people entitled to vote. That wording has triggered a dispute over whether the threshold applies to members attending the meeting or to all eligible cooperative members.

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I have no doubt that this means a majority of those participating in the general meeting, not a majority of the cooperative’s members.

Aleksandra Sikorska-Lewandowska, a professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University, said the provision refers to a majority of those attending the general meeting. Piotr Pałka, a professor at SANS, took the opposite view. He said the draft expressly requires a majority of all eligible members and warned that the rule could become a dead letter if adopted.

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I am one hundred percent certain that this means a majority of members entitled to vote, which is stated explicitly in the government’s amendment.

Pałka noted that housing cooperatives typically have several thousand members, while attendance at general meetings reaches only a few percent. Some cooperatives have 10,000 or even 20,000 members. Under the draft, he said, residents could lose the practical ability to decide whether short-term rentals should be banned.

Deputy Sports and Tourism Minister Piotr Borys indicated during the bill’s first reading in the Sejm that the government intended to require support from at least half of all members. He linked the threshold to low turnout, saying decisions that significantly interfere with property rights should not be made by a majority of a small meeting. The proposal has angered cooperatives managing about 2 million homes, according to Poland’s statistics office.

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Sometimes only 1 percent of those entitled to vote attend them.