A long time ago, when in Poland was there was socialism (as it never got to communism), people were obliged to register. That is every citizen had to have an address "where it was allocated by the government". It was not allowed to travel without an official permission. Whenever you moved into a new place for 3 days or more, you had to report this. That way the companion government could track you.
Nowadays... that is still the case.
Well... in fact similar restrictions existed in Poland for centuries.
What does it mean for citizens of Poland nowadays?
Whenever you travel to place which is not your currently registered place of living... you need to register.
There are 2 types of registrations. First is the temporary registration (ex. when you travel to some place for 3 days or more but less than 3 months). Second is a permanent residence place registration.
The second one is written in every official document you might have. Every time it changes... you need to take at least one day off (polish bureaucracy is a difficult one), go into one place, report where you are going to stay (you need the person who has rights to the residence place to be there... personally), then go to another place to change your identity card... but that's only the beginning. And you need to provide your current photos. Every document that has the data being changed... every single one needs to be changed. It is usually not free. In case if you have a car - you need to change your vehicle registration document (it costs), vehicle card and your driver license. Total cost (excluding the cost of current photos): ~5.3% of the median monthly salary. It means that if you are an average person and you would like to relocate 4 times a year... it would consume ~2% of your salary (or more) and you need to take 8 days of (as you need to do the formal things personally filling the papers, etc. and then pick up the documents).
What has changed? Since 2013 it is no longer a crime (yes - you would go to the prison... would they torture you?) in Poland if you won't register. So nowadays you would just be doing everything against the law - probably getting some fine.
But wait. That is not all. There is a law saying that I can send a official document to your registered address and it is considered as delivered if I did it twice. Even if the address was incorrect (that is if I would deliberately use your old registration address... or even an registration address of anyone else). Not enough? Seems so. As there are known issues (it is quite often situation by the way) where some debtors had no money to pay their debts and another person was robbed. Why? Because they had same name or surname or age or similar address or... And the bailiff might rob you without any consequences. You want to get your money back? Then you need to prove that the money were yours, that the debt is not yours, that it was illegal to take the money from you... and then you can politely ask for refund of the money. Of course there is an issue who should return the money... but there is possibly some small chance that someone would agree to give the money back to you. And what would you tell to the fact that our governments is going to increase the rights of bailiffs in Poland?
Luckily for me, I had no incidents involving bailiffs yet. However I had gone through the process of changing my documents.
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