According to Art. 60.7 of the Act on Public Finance of August 27, 2009 , public funds constituting non-tax budgetary receivables of a public law nature are included in the income collected by state and local government budgetary units on the basis of separate acts. The zoning fee is such a budgetary receivable.
Let us remind you what a zoning fee is. According to Art. 36.4 of the Act on Planning and Spacial Development of 27 March 2003 , if in connection with the adoption of the local zoning plan or its amendment, the value of the real property increases and the owner or perpetual usufructuary sells the real property, the head of the commune, mayor or president of the city collects a one-off fee established in this plan, determined as a percentage of the increase in the value of the real property. This fee is the municipality’s own revenue. The fee may not exceed 30% of the increase in the value of the subject property.
What then happens in the course of the proceedings on imposition of the zoning fee if the party to the proceedings dies? This issue has in the past been quite a challenge for the authorities. However, it can be concluded that recently the position of administrative courts on this issue has become more uniform.
Therefore, below I indicate three judgments that consistently represent the latest jurisprudence position. Interestingly, this issue has appeared relatively few times in the jurisprudence of administrative courts.
Thus: in the Judgment of the Voivodship Administrative Court in Łódź of November 8, 2017 (file reference: II SA / Łd 689/17), it was indicated (following the resolution of seven judges of the Supreme Administrative Court of December 10, 2009, file ref. II OPS 3/09), that: The complainant did, admittedly, indicate that he had acquired the real estate on the basis of an inheritance division agreement and an agreement of annulment regarding joint ownership, and that he had acquired the plot in question when the current zoning plan was already in force. In his opinion, in such a situation, the imposition of the zoning fee was unjustified, because the purchase and sale of the plot took place when the same local zoning plan was in force – but as indicated above, the Voivodship l Administrative Court pointed out that the mere fact of acquiring real estate by inheritance does not exempt from the obligation to pay the fee. Only here the party purchased the property before the proceedings for calculation of the fee were initiated.
Unlike in the second case, which we are considering, where the death of the party took place in the course of the fee determination procedure. The judgment indicated that the zoning fee, which was not charged before the testator’s death (despite the fact that the proceedings were pending), cannot be charged (judgment of October 7, 2016 of the Voivodship Administrative Court in Glwice, file ref. II SA / Gl 272/15).
The third case involves the situation when the zoning fee has already been calculated and the administrative decision conerning this issue becomes final. This is where the Voivodship Administrative Court in Poznań comes to our aid, which in its judgment of March 14, 2013, file ref. II SA / Po 60/13, unequivocally ruled that “only the zoning fee concretisedin the final administrative decision may be considered an equivalent to a tax liability, and thus only in the case when such a decision is issued with respect to the seller of the real property and becomes final during the seller’s lifetime, that the provisions of the Tax Ordinance may apply accordingly to the obligation to pay zoning fee in a certain amount resulting from this decision”.
To sum up:
we calculate the planning fee when: the seller acquired the property by inheritance and then sold it within 5 years from the date of entry into force of the development plan, and also if the death of the party occured after the decision on the zoning fee became final and legally binding – then we charge the heirs with the fee.
However, we cannot charge the fee if the death of the party occurred in the course of the proceedings regarding the determination of the zoning fee but before its completion.
