This article is a part of Poland Unpacked. Weekly intelligence for decision-makers
For years, property owners in Poland have selected tenants primarily on the basis of first impressions and a handful of documents that are easy to forge. Tenants, meanwhile, fear that full disclosure of their financial situation would weaken their negotiating position. A startup founded in Wrocław aims to fill this trust gap. Zaufanylokator.pl offers independent tenant verification and plans to scale its operations nationwide.
A rental market that trusts no one
The scale of the problem is largely rooted in the structure of Poland’s rental market. An estimated 12% of Poles live in rented housing, compared with an EU average of 31% and as much as 53% in Germany. Most contracts – around 60% - are signed for one year, which means frequent tenant turnover and a repeated screening process each time. Rising social mobility, increasing housing prices, and an inflow of foreign residents all suggest that demand for safe and predictable rental arrangements will continue to grow in the years ahead.
Poland’s rental market needs new standards based on trust and reliable information.
The problem is further compounded by the legal framework itself. In practice, the interests of tenants – including dishonest ones – are now better protected than those of property owners. This imbalance is what zaufanylokator.pl [trusted tenant – ed.] aims to partially address. The platform assesses tenants based on an analysis of their financial and personal situation, an interview incorporating elements of behavioral psychology, and the company’s proprietary methodology.
According to a survey conducted by Rendin and the Mieszkanicznik Association, around 70% of landlords report having experienced problems with tenants, with the average declared financial loss amounting to nearly PLN 9,000 (approximately EUR 2,100) per problematic case.
“The rental market in Poland needs new standards. Today, landlords bear significant risk, while tenants fear excessive intrusion into their privacy. We are trying to reconcile the interests of both sides by introducing objective, professional verification,” says Jacek Ławrecki, co-founder of Zaufany Lokator.
Debts worth billions
The scale of the problem the Wrocław-based startup is trying to address is well illustrated by data from Statistics Poland (GUS). It primarily concerns housing stock managed by municipalities, housing cooperatives, and condominium associations, but it nonetheless provides a clear picture of the risks associated with tenants failing to meet their housing obligations in Poland.
“According to the latest GUS report Housing Management and Municipal Infrastructure 2024, at the end of 2024 tenants were in arrears on payments in 22.8% of the 8.3 million dwellings covered by the survey. The total value of arrears reached nearly PLN 8.6 billion (EUR 2 billion), almost 25% more than in 2022, when it stood at PLN 6.9 billion (EUR 1.6 billion). Municipal tenants account for a particularly large share of the debt, responsible for 65.8% of the total arrears,” says Jacek Ławrecki.
The scale of risk is further confirmed by court statistics. In 2024, approximately 13,000 eviction proceedings were underway, 5,800 evictions were ordered, and 3,900 were executed. From the perspective of a private landlord, even a single problematic tenant can mean months of unpaid rent and legal costs, not to mention the expenses required to restore the property to a rentable condition.
Human as arbiter
Zaufanylokator.pl is built on a model in which an analyst plays the central role. The process begins with collecting documents and information from the applicant for the certificate. Identity is verified, along with the stability of income sources, rental history, and entries in debt registries.
“We do not base decisions solely on an algorithm. We believe that when assessing a tenant’s credibility, context is just as important as data, which is why every verification is conducted by a human,” says Jacek Ławrecki.
The outcome of the analysis is one of three recommendations – positive, neutral, or negative – valid for a limited period. A neutral recommendation is issued when the analyst identifies inconsistencies that do not disqualify the applicant, but should prompt greater caution on the part of the landlord.
A negative recommendation results from serious warning signs, such as significant financial arrears or discrepancies between declared information and documentation. In this setup, the company acts as a trust buffer: the landlord receives a clear recommendation, while the tenant does not have to disclose sensitive financial data directly.
“A single late payment from several years ago does not necessarily undermine a tenant’s credibility. Similarly, a high income does not automatically mean low risk,” adds the company’s co-founder.
The law favors tenants
The sources of mistrust in Poland’s rental market lie primarily in the structure of the legal framework itself.
“The Polish rental market is indeed structurally less developed than in Western Europe. It is estimated that only 4–5% of Poles live in rented housing under market conditions. Meanwhile, in Germany the figure exceeds 45%, while in Austria and Denmark it stands at over 30%,” says attorney Aleksandra Grabarska, partner at the law firm KBiW Kurpiejewski, Budzewski i Wspólnicy.
Poland has no centralized registry of rental payment history or database of unreliable tenants.
According to the lawyer, the dominant source of risk for landlords is overly tenant-protective regulation. Eviction proceedings against non-compliant tenants take anywhere from several months to two years, during which time landlords typically receive no rent. The problem is compounded by the absence of a system comparable to the credit bureau (BIK) for the rental market.
“There is no centralized registry of rental payment history in Poland, nor any database of unreliable tenants comparable to systems used in the United Kingdom or Scandinavian countries. Verification is reduced to checking income certificates and references – documents that are easy to forge,” emphasizes Grabarska.
The problem also has a second dimension. A tenant entering into a relationship with a landlord often has no ability to verify the legal status of the property – for example, its maintenance history or the credibility of the intermediary. This dual uncertainty increases the effective cost of capital tied up in rental housing. It also discourages both institutional investors and small private owners from entering the market.
Mistrust has therefore already become a systemic issue.
“A significant part of this stems from inconsistent and unpredictable legislation that, in practice, fails to effectively protect either party. Landlords fear lengthy procedures in cases of arrears or property damage, while tenants fear unclear rules, sudden changes in terms, and a lack of stability,” says Piotr Zdanowski, president of the real estate agency ZdanIvest.
Benefits and pitfalls of tenant verification
Solutions such as Zaufany Lokator respond to a real information gap in the market, although experts view them from different perspectives. For landlords, the benefit is straightforward: a reliable assessment of a candidate, similar to the one a bank performs when evaluating a loan applicant.
“Honest tenants also benefit. Those who build a track record of timely payments and responsible use of property can more easily access attractive apartments, move through the qualification process faster, and build their reputation in the rental market,” notes Celina Mierzejewska, head of the Warsaw branch of the Mieszkanicznik Association.
The legal community also sees genuine risks in such services.
“The first risk is discrimination. Scoring based on income data and employment history may systematically exclude people with irregular earnings: freelancers, those on civil law contracts, young people entering the labor market, or foreigners,” says attorney Aleksandra Grabarska.
The second risk concerns personal data protection. Processing financial and behavioral information requires strict compliance with GDPR. Any data breaches or misuse could undermine trust in the entire segment of services. A third limitation is structural: the reliability of rental history assessments depends on the size of the underlying transaction database, and Poland’s formal rental market remains relatively shallow.
“A model in which verification is voluntary, transparent, symmetrical, and subject to oversight has the potential to become a trust infrastructure that the Polish rental market desperately lacks,” concludes Grabarska.
The market in search of a common standard
The community of property owners is broadly positive about the development of tenant verification services, though it raises concerns about data quality.
“For years we have been pointing out that the current regulations, in particular the Act on the Protection of Tenants’ Rights, have disrupted the balance between the rights of tenants and those of property owners,” says Celina Mierzejewska.
For credibility assessments to have real value, they must cover a significant share of the market and be based on verifiable information.
Within the community of professional landlords, there is growing discussion of so-called rental affordability. The concept refers to a situation in which a tenant household’s income is at least twice the monthly rental cost.
“This is not about discriminating against anyone. It is about increasing the likelihood that both parties will be able to build a stable, long-term relationship based on financial security and mutual trust,” adds Mierzejewska.
The institutional real estate market takes a similar view. It argues that inconsistent and unpredictable legislation in practice fails to effectively protect either party. However, it stresses that the effectiveness of verification tools depends on two factors: scale and data verifiability.
“For a credibility assessment to have real value, it must cover a significant portion of the market and be based on information that can be verified. Otherwise, it will remain merely a declaration without predictive power,” says Piotr Zdanowski.
For landlords, this represents an opportunity to reduce risk. For tenants, it offers a way to build a “reputation” that facilitates access to better offers.
“The risk, however, lies in incorrect or dishonest assessments. This is because organizations creating such systems must first build their own transparency and credibility before they can become a market standard,” adds the president of ZdanIvest.
What comes next for tenant certification?
For now, Zaufany Lokator is not committing to specific numerical targets. The company argues that Poland’s tenant certification market is still at a very early stage of development. At the same time, it acknowledges that making precise forecasts five years into the future would involve considerable uncertainty.
“Over the next five years, we want the Zaufany Lokator certificate to become the most widely recognized tool for reducing rental risk in Poland. Our ambition is to reach a scale that allows us to genuinely influence market standards and support more professional relationships between landlords and tenants,” says Jacek Ławrecki.
Experts agree that without streamlined eviction procedures, the creation of rental payment history registries, and greater standardization of lease agreements, Poland’s rental market will continue to develop more slowly than demographic trends and demand would suggest.
Even so, startups such as Zaufany Lokator could play a meaningful role in narrowing the gap between Poland and the more mature rental markets of Western Europe – provided they remain transparent and open to independent scrutiny.
Key Takeaways
- The biggest obstacle to the development of Poland’s rental market is not mistrust itself. The real problem is the lack of infrastructure to verify trust in a meaningful way. Poland has no rental-market equivalent of a credit bureau, and eviction proceedings can take up to two years. During that time, landlords typically receive no rent. It is this structural imbalance of risk – not isolated disputes – that leads some property owners to leave apartments vacant or abandon the rental market altogether.
- Tenant certification has the potential to become an industry standard. But that will require both a sufficiently large data pool and a balanced assessment of both parties. A verification tool that evaluates only the tenant, without assessing the landlord or the property, merely reinforces the existing imbalance of power. Likewise, a limited database of rental transactions undermines the credibility of any rating. Without sufficient data, a credibility assessment risks remaining little more than a declaration with no meaningful predictive value.
- Private verification tools can reduce the risk of individual rental transactions. They cannot, however, solve the structural shortcomings of Poland’s rental market or substitute for legislative reform. Streamlined eviction procedures, rental payment history registries, and clear data protection standards are also needed. Without these changes, even the most sophisticated certification model is likely to remain a niche solution rather than become part of the market’s institutional framework.