Way to get a 21% lower tax on office real estate
Most commercial property owners in Łódź transfer too high amounts to the city office every month. The problem does not lie in bad will, but in measurement errors that have haunted buildings for years. Simply put: you are paying for meters that according to the law should not be taxed at the highest rate.
Why old measurements are stealing from your wallet
In July 2024, we visited an office building on Narutowicza Street, which according to 2011 documentation had 3,842 square meters of usable area. After a thorough inventory, it turned out that the actual area subject to taxation was 247 meters smaller. The difference resulted from the incorrect classification of elevator shafts and internal staircases, which in those years were entered into the register as commercial space. Such mistakes are a plague in Łódź buildings commissioned before 2016.
We count every penny, so we know that at current rates per square meter, such a mistake cost the owner of this specific facility over 8,150 PLN per year. Over 12 years of the building's operation, the company lost almost 98,000 PLN, which no one will return to them if they don't demand a correction themselves. The law allows for correcting declarations up to 5 years back, which in this case meant recovering 40,750 PLN in cash almost immediately after submitting the appropriate documents to the office at 104 Piotrkowska St.
According to the letter of the law, you should not pay the full office tax rate for elevator shafts and technical risers.
Technical area vs. official interpretations
A common mistake is including places where the room height does not exceed 2.20 meters in the usable area. In office buildings from the 90s, of which we have many in Łódź near Piłsudski Ave., sloping ceilings on the top floors or lowered technical ceilings in basements are the norm. If a room has a height between 1.40 and 2.20 meters, only 50% of its area is included in the tax base. Below 1.40 meters, the tax is exactly zero PLN. These are hard facts that property managers often forget when filling out the DN-1 forms every year.
During an audit performed in September 2024 in a building near Manufaktura, we found 118 square meters of space under stairs and in technical niches that were settled as 99.3% of office space. Simply put: the owner paid for them just like for luxury management offices. After introducing the correction and applying the 50/100 rule, the annual levy fell by 2,470 PLN. This may not seem like a fortune given the scale of the entire building, but over a decade it gives an amount that can be used to carry out a solid renovation of the reception area.
How to prepare for a measurement audit
Concrete results, not promises – that's how we approach every assignment. Before you go to the office, you must have in hand a report prepared by a licensed surveyor who uses the PN-ISO 9836 standard. This is the only document with which tax officials cannot argue. In 2024, we conducted 14 such verifications in the Łódź voivodeship and in 11 cases we found differences in favor of the client. The average tax recovery was 14.3% per year, which for large warehouses or class B office buildings generates savings running into tens of thousands of PLN.
The correction process usually takes from 45 to 62 business days. The office has the right to its own site visit, so the documentation must be flawless. In October 2024, we helped a company in the logistics industry whose officials challenged the measurement of the unloading ramp. Thanks to precise calculations and indicating specific administrative court judgments, we managed to defend the lower tax. The client saved 12,430 PLN per year, and we proved that knowledge of current EU real estate regulations is the basis of modern financial management.
The average tax recovery in our 2024 audits is as high as 14.3% of the annual tax amount.
Financial consequences of incorrect object qualification
Real estate tax is not just about meters, but also about the way of use. We often encounter a situation where part of a building has been empty for months due to renovation or lack of a tenant, and the owner still pays the rate 'related to business activity'. There are specific conditions under which this rate can be temporarily lowered, citing technical reasons that prevent the use of the facility. In November 2023, we helped the owner of a tenement house on Jaracza Street reduce costs by 31% for the duration of the modernization of the roof and ceilings.
Many people are afraid to cross the taxman, but we act according to the letter of the law. If a building has structural defects that make it unusable, there is no reason to pay the highest tax for it. At Horyzont Finansowy, we don't look for 'creative accounting', but we catch errors that are in black and white in the papers. If your office building was built before 2018, the chance that you are overpaying is about 76%. It is worth spending one day checking the documentation instead of giving the city the equivalent of a new company car every year.
Summary and next steps
The rules are simple: first a document audit, then physical measurement, and finally a refund claim. It's not worth waiting until the new tax year, because every month of delay is irrevocably lost money. In 2024, our team in Łódź recovered a total of 412,800 PLN for clients from real estate tax overpayments alone. The smallest refund was 3,200 PLN, and the largest exceeded 89,000 PLN for a production hall near Zgierz. These are real funds that can work for your development instead of sitting in the office account.
If you're not sure if your office building is measured correctly, start by reviewing your last tax decision and comparing it with the building project. If the numbers match to the centimeter, that's already a warning sign – in reality, buildings rarely match the project by 99.7%. Simply put: usually something is built slightly differently than the architect draws, and the office always accepts the version more favorable to the city budget. It's time to change that and start paying only what is actually due.
