The new Polish government, dominated by the Koalicja Obywatelska (Civic Coalition) party, announced back in the election campaign that it would resume work on a law on REIT-type structures, abandoned several years ago. Economic organizations are calling on it to make good on its economic promises - the introduction of domestic REITs could bolster domestic demand and lure more domestic capital to the real estate market, virtually non-existent here today.

Wolf Theiss has announced the expansion of its Corporate and M&A team in Poland with the addition of 27 new team members, including seven partners.

Witold Rafalski joined GTC Poland as the Head of Asset Management and Marcin Zaskurski joined as the General Counsel and Head of Legal Department. 

Piotr Staniszewski, Partner, Real Estate, Dentons talked to Property Forum about the awareness of the PRS investors in Poland, planned legislative changes and the current financing conditions.

The planned Highest Construction Office (Nejvyšší stavební úřad) and the system of regional construction offices subordinate to it will not be established in the Czech Republic. The construction authorities will remain within the municipalities, the Czech News Agency (ČTK) reports.

As a result of a legal dispute between real estate tycoon Radovan Vítek's CPI Property Group and businessmen Marek Čmejla and Jiří Diviš, a Cypriot court has reportedly ordered banks to freeze CPI Property Group's assets worth almost CZK 13 billion (€553 million), according to the German economic newspaper Handelsblatt, cited by the Czech daily Hn.cz. CPIPG, however, denies the German newspaper's information, saying that the interim measure is not in force and that no accounts have been seized or assets were frozen.

Piotr Szafarz, Partner, Head of Real Estate in Poland and CEE, Dentons talked to Property Forum about the forecasts for the PRS market in Poland, the impact of the war in Ukraine on the European properties and the expected changes in financing conditions.

The City of Prague plans to improve conditions for real estate developers by lowering the number of mandatory parking places in residential and office buildings. Thanks to a new legal amendment, they will no longer have to build a mandatory garage space for each apartment. The amendment, which will now be open for 45 days for comments, would help real estate investors and developers, as well as those who want to do extensive reconstruction, writes E15.cz.

Revetas Capital announced a new promotion within the legal team: Joanna Przybyl has taken over the role of General Counsel for the firm. Joanna has been working in partnership with Revetas Capital since January 2018, she is a graduate of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland and holds a master’s degree in Law and has 13 years of experience in the legal domain previously working for the international law firm DLA Piper

Dr. Erwin Hanslik MRICS, Taylor Wessing’s CEE Head of Real Estate & Construction and head of the firm's Prague and Brno offices, talked to Property Forum about the legal challenges real estate investors and developers in the Czech Republic have to face.