Monika, come on, you’re like a real sister to me. Remember our trips to the seaside in Gdynia? Or how I babysat little Mateusz when he was teething? You can’t let my life’s dream fall apart over a stupid bank document.
The manager at the PKO branch made it clear. All I need is a second guarantor with a steady contract and a clean record. And they’ll wrap up the formalities in 24 hours. You have an impeccable credit history.
No arrears with the authorities. I’ll have that office up and running in a quarter. I’ll bring in professional lasers from Germany. Girls are already asking for booking appointments.
I give you my word. I swear on everything holy that I’ll pay the installment a week early, right at the counter. You won’t even feel like you signed anything. Kasia grabbed my hands.
With her well-groomed fingers and blood-red manicure. Tears glistened in her big, heavily accentuated eyes. Her lower lip trembled, and on the table in the cafe in Toruń’s Old Town, two coffees and a half-eaten portion of gingerbread were going cold. Katarzyna, the younger sister of my husband, Bartek, had always been a force of nature.
A 30-year-old, striking blonde who never stayed in one job for more than a few months, but always looked like a fashion model, smelled of expensive perfume, and radiated grand business plans. One time it was to be a vintage Italian clothing boutique, another time an organic lavender plantation near Bydgoszcz. My husband’s family, led by his mother, Mrs. Jadwiga, looked at her like a work of art.
Our little Kasia has that spark. She needs scope, not to be hunched over a desk like you office ants. I was that very ant. For eight years, I had worked as a senior accountant at a shipping company.
At our home, every zloty was looked at from both sides, and tax returns were always calculated to the penny. Together with Bartek, solely through our own efforts and without outside help, we took out a mortgage for an end-of-terrace house in a quiet part of Toruń’s Mokre district. On weekends, we applied plaster and painted the walls ourselves. We planted hydrangeas in front of the entrance and set up a room for our seven-year-old.
We lived an orderly, honest life, transferring even a modest amount to a savings account at ING every month. And suddenly, this same Kasia was sitting opposite me, begging for a signature to guarantee a loan for starting a business for a staggering amount of 160,000 PLN. 160,000 is not pocket change, I said with reserve, gently pulling my hands from her grip. Why won’t Robert or Mom co-sign for you?
The mother-in-law has a secure teacher’s pension, after all. Kasia demonstratively rolled her eyes and sighed with deep drama. Robert turned out to be a spineless miser. Yesterday, I told him to pack up and put his bags out the door, and the bank won’t even talk to Mom with her 2,800 PLN pension.
Her scoring won’t pass with that kind of collateral. Moni, don’t you trust me? It’s all staying in the family, after all. I talked to Bartek.
He said it straight. If Monika has no objections, then neither do I. We need to help my sister get on her feet. You’re not going to pick a fight with your own husband, are you?
That evening in our kitchen, the air was thick with tension. Bartek paced nervously between the cupboards, stirring the reheated bigos. Monika, come on. Why are you smelling a rat everywhere?
Sure, Kasia was a bit of a flake before, but she’s finally grown up. She found a spot right by the New Town Square. She has a ready-made business plan. If we refuse her, my mother will make our lives miserable.
You know my mom. She’ll start whining to the priest. She’ll tell all the neighbors that her daughter-in-law is tearing the family apart. And what is supposed to happen, anyway?
Kasia is taking on the repayment herself. You’re just signing. So the system will push the application through. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I lacked assertiveness back then.
I was afraid of a family war. I gave in to the pressure and the vision of my mother-in-law’s constant digs about my alleged callousness and stinginess. The next day at 10:00 AM, we were already sitting in a glass cubicle at the PKO branch on Szeroka Street. The lady from the loan department, a stern woman in wire-rimmed glasses, spread a thick stack of papers in front of me and placed a statement of voluntary submission to execution under Article 777 of the Code of Civil Procedure on top.
Ms. Monika, I have a duty to formally advise you. According to the civil code, as a guarantor, you are jointly and severally liable with the main borrower, with all your present and future assets, income from work, and bank accounts. If there is even a small delay, the bank has the right to refer the matter directly to a bailiff to seize your funds.
Are you fully aware of these consequences? My hand trembled. A red warning light went off in my head. But next to me sat a beaming Kasia, squeezing my arm.
And behind my chair stood Bartek, nodding in approval. I gritted my teeth and signed. After a few dozen minutes, Kasia was strutting down the sidewalk with an envelope containing a card with a limit and the cash withdrawn at the counter for the premises’ deposit. She kissed me on both cheeks, shoved a box of chocolates into my hands, and chattered away like crazy.
Monia, you’re an angel. The painters are coming in tomorrow. You’re coming over for the opening on Friday. We’ll pop the best champagne.
When Friday arrived, I found the place by the square dead quiet and locked up tight. Faded blinds hung in the dusty windows, and inside I could see only raw plaster and old newspapers scattered in the corners. I dialed Kasia’s number. Instead of a connection tone, I heard three short beeps, after which a cold automated voice announced: The number does not exist.
The dialed number is not in service. I tried one more time, same result. I felt the blood drain from my face. I immediately dialed my husband’s number.
Bartek, did you get through to your sister? Her phone isn’t answering at all. Oh, she probably just got a new business number for the salon, he said dismissively. Call Mom.
She surely knows what’s going on. I dialed Mrs. Jadwiga’s number. She picked up after a long moment.
Her voice was surprisingly resonant, confident, and tinged with some strange satisfaction. Yes, Monika? What do you want now? Kasia is doing just fine.
My child has finally escaped this Polish dump. What do you mean, escaped? I asked, feeling my voice breaking. Where is she?
What about the beauty salon? Have you been living under a rock? What salon are you even talking about? my mother-in-law scoffed haughtily.
Little Kasia got on a bus last night and went straight to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. An acquaintance found her a great job sorting flowers. Earnings in euros, housing provided, Western standards. She said straight out that she wasn’t going to slave away for pennies in Toruń and give everything to the state in taxes.
And what about the loan? I shouted into the phone so loudly that passersby on Szeroka Street started staring at me. 160,000 at PKO. Where I’m the guarantor?
She picked up that money two days ago. Don’t raise your voice at me, my blood pressure is high enough, my mother-in-law bristled. What loan? I know nothing about it.
Kasia is a grown woman. She’ll settle her affairs once she starts earning in hard currency. And stop being so jealous of her. You and Bartek have a place to live, and she needs to build her future too.
The call was abruptly cut off. I was left alone on the cobblestones of the Old Town square, and the world literally swirled before my eyes. She never planned any salon. She had no intention of renovating anything.
She plotted it coldly with ruthless premeditation. Get the maximum cash from the bank, dump the debt on my head, throw the SIM card in the trash, and vanish abroad. For the first few weeks, Bartek still lived in delusions. He insisted that his sister had to get settled first, that foreign phone numbers cost a fortune, and that she would surely send the payment for the first installment any minute.
He refused to believe that his own sister had behaved like a common con artist. However, the payment deadline passed at the end of the month. The monthly installment was 3,800 PLN. That was more than half of my take-home pay.
Not a single penny from Kasia reached my account. Three days later, my phone started ringing. The employees of the PKO Collections Department left no illusions. Ms.
Monika Wojciechowska, the main borrower, Ms. Katarzyna Nowak, is unreachable. Under the terms of the guarantee agreement no. 448/2023, the resulting arrears are subject to immediate deduction from your account.
Two weeks later, the banking system blocked my personal account. The full amount was withdrawn, nearly 4,000 PLN plus penalty interest for every day of delay. The next month brought exactly the same. Our daily life turned into a nightmare.
My paycheck would vanish into the bank’s depths the very day it hit my account. We had to survive on Bartek’s salary alone, which, after paying our mortgage, barely covered basic groceries: potatoes, cheap pasta, and the cheapest bread. Our son had to go without a new winter coat. We gave up his extra English lessons.
We turned off the lights in every room to cut our electricity bills. My credit report dived straight to the bottom. I received a red debt flag, becoming a persona non grata to the entire financial sector in the country. When I desperately knocked on my mother-in-law’s door, demanding contact info for her daughter in the Netherlands, Mrs.
Jadwiga opened the door just wide enough to the security chain. Get out of here, you vulture. No one held a gun to your head. You ran to the bank to sign it yourself.
Bartek is a coward for letting you slander his own blood like this. Kasieńka is freezing there in cold storage with the flowers from dawn, saving every penny, and you would strip the shirt off her back. Since you were so smart, pay it yourself now. The worst part, however, was that Bartek had completely capitulated.
Instead of fighting, he started running from the problem. He became snappy. He kept complaining that I was always destroying his family. And in the evenings, he would disappear into the garage with a can of cheap beer.
He was afraid of confronting his mother and pretended that everything would just work itself out. Well, look, Monika, they’re taking the money, so they’re taking it. We’ll scrape by for a few years, we won’t die of hunger. I realized one thing then.
If I don’t take matters into my own hands, these people will drag me down with them, ruining my child’s future. I made an appointment for a consultation with Łukasz Kamiński, a lawyer from Toruń who specialized in difficult commercial cases and international debt collection. The lawyer, a slim man with a piercing gaze, analyzed the loan agreement, the statements of forced garnishment of my account, and the declaration of submission to execution point by point. It’s a textbook case, Ms.
Monika, though humanly speaking, it’s exceptionally vile, he summarized, tapping his pen against the desk. To the bank, you are the ideal target. You have permanent residency in Poland, a legal job, and real estate. Collecting the debt from you is just a formality.
Meanwhile, your sister-in-law is abroad, and it doesn’t pay for the bank to trigger cross-border procedures in the Netherlands for 160,000, since they can effortlessly collect from the guarantor. Mr. Lawyer, there’s no justice in this, I sobbed powerlessly. Am I supposed to pay for someone else’s cunning, pay for an insolent woman’s whims, while my child’s shoes are leaking?
Lawyer Kamiński took off his glasses and looked at me with calm confidence. Justice exists, you just have to reach for it with the right legal paragraphs. Your sister-in-law thinks she won the lottery, but she forgot one thing. Poland and the Netherlands operate within the same EU legal space.
The lawyer pulled over a clean notepad and sketched out a plan. First of all, according to articles 518 and 376 of the Civil Code, the moment a guarantor pays someone else’s debt, they acquire a recourse claim against the actual debtor. Every cent deducted from your account becomes a direct debt owed to you by Katarzyna Nowak. Secondly, taking the cash and fleeing abroad immediately while changing contact details fulfills the criteria for fraud of significant value under Article 286 of the Penal Code.
He stood up from his desk and reached for the EU regulations. We are attacking on three fronts simultaneously. First, we are filing a report with the District Prosecutor’s Office in Toruń with a request for prosecution. At the same time, we are obtaining a European Enforcement Order in the Common Court.
Simultaneously, we are hiring a licensed detective and legal firm from Rotterdam to determine her Dutch BSN number, official employment, and accounts at local banks like ING or ABN AMRO. When a local bailiff receives the EU order, they will garnish her wages, adding all interest, legal fees, and court costs at Dutch rates. How long will this take? I asked, feeling my strength returning.
About half a year. But I guarantee you that your sister-in-law’s landing will be exceptionally hard. The Dutch lawyers and investigators showed absolute professionalism. Kasia never worked in a flower sorting plant, nor did she freeze in a warehouse for even a moment.
After reaching Rotterdam with a stack of banknotes, she rented a modern apartment in a skyscraper on the banks of the New Meuse. She invested in aesthetic medicine procedures. She updated her wardrobe and got a job as a receptionist at an exclusive spa club. On a hidden social media profile, she regularly posted photos from trendy venues, yachts, and Amsterdam parties, captioning them with things like: My new free life, far away from Polish losers.
She was firmly convinced that the national border and her lack of registration in the country effectively protected her from creditors and my naivety. She had no idea that the Toruń District Court had already issued a judgment awarding me the full amount of the recourse claim, including accrued costs. It was already over 184,000 PLN, and the judge had attached the European Enforcement Order clause to the document. The finale happened on an ordinary Friday in the middle of her shift at the Rotterdam spa.
She was sitting behind the counter, sipping a cocktail, when two Dutch bailiffs approached the reception with local police escort. The officers checked her ID, verified her passport details, and handed her the order to execute the European title. In front of her supervisors, colleagues, and clients, she was led out to a patrol car for ignoring prosecutor’s summons. That same afternoon, the local bailiff blocked her account at ING Netherlands, securing all funds there, and her employer received an absolute order to garnish 70% of her monthly salary until the debt to Monika Wojciechowska was fully covered.
What’s more, to cover immediate enforcement costs, the bailiff seized her latest iPhone, designer handbags, and gold jewelry. On Saturday morning, persistent knocking echoed at the door of our house. Standing on the threshold was Ms. Jadwiga.
However, she no longer resembled that haughty woman full of contempt. She was a hunched, decade-older crone in a tilted beret with eyelids swollen from crying. She fell to her knees right on the welcome mat, grabbing the hem of my coat and wailing across the entire driveway. Monika, dear child, please help.
Have mercy on our Kasia. Yesterday, a Dutch bailiff seized her entire salary. She has nothing to pay the rent with. She’ll be out on the street any moment now.
It’s a city-wide embarrassment at her work. The police keep dragging her in for questioning. The girl is sobbing uncontrollably on the phone. She says she’s going to end it all.
Withdraw those lawsuits. Lift those EU filings off her. After all, we are family, the same blood. Bartek, my son, tell your wife something.
Make her stop this hell. Bartek stood behind me in the hallway. He looked in silence at his mother, who just recently wouldn’t even let me through the threshold. All those months when I fought alone for our family’s survival finally opened his eyes.
It dawned on him how close his loved ones were to sacrificing his wife and child’s well-being for the whims of a brazen schemer. He stepped closer, gently but firmly moved his mother’s hands from my clothes, and said in a calm, emotionless voice: Please get up, Mom, and end this scene. Kasia robbed us of more than just money. She took away my child’s peace of mind.
She was partying in high society in the Netherlands while Monika was handing every zloty earned to the bank. Now she will pay back every single euro cent, according to the law. And if Mom comes here to cause a scene again, I will report the matter to the police as harassment. My mother-in-law stiffened.
Pure, venomous rage flashed in her eyes. You unnatural son, you sold your own sister for silver; may you choke on those courts of yours. She rose from her knees, spat at our door, and marched toward the gate, nervously wiping her face with a handkerchief. The Dutch enforcement machinery worked with 100% efficiency.
Every month, regular installments arrived in my foreign currency account, deducted directly from Katarzyna’s income, until the entire debt, penalty interest, and legal costs were settled to the last penny. I regained a clean record in the credit registries, and our marriage with Bartek, though it went through a real earthquake, became more mature and stronger than ever. In time, I opened my own accounting firm in the city center, definitively cutting myself off from toxic relations with his family. No sweet words about family duty should ever dull your vigilance or replace common sense.
Anyone who deliberately abuses the trust of loved ones for their own convenience will sooner or later collide with the hard law and be left with a bill that must be paid to the very end.