93 Sławomir Pawłowski 1 Division of real estate upon request and the return obligaton under artcle 136(1) of the act on the real Property management: a few remarks in the context of counteractng the so-called “land freezing” versus the principle of loyalty Abstract Division of real estate by application is still not properly recognised in the jurisprudence of admini - strative courts. On the one hand, this is manifested in the fact that, although it results in the takeover of private land for the beneft of a public entity for the purpose of building or extending public roads, this decision is not recognised as being expropriation. One of the most important consequences of denying to recognise this division as one of the forms of expropriation is that it is not subject to the return obligation, even if the public-purpose investment project, i.e. the construction of a public road, was not completed within 10 years of the takeover. It should be added that the lack of actions on the part of the commune to acquire such land leads to an adverse phenomenon which is referred to as “freezing the land”. On the other hand, it is argued that the division decision has no features of autho- ritative and compulsory acquisition of the title to real property by the commune. The above views are subject to criticism given inter alia that they fail to take into account that the spatial planning acts, in particular the local spatial development plan, play a prognostic role in relation to expropriation acts. The study presents the thesis that, were the premise of the public purpose be rejected, then regard- less of the form of takeover of the title to real property by a public entity, the obligation to return this property to the former owner or its legal successors arises. Key words: spatial planning, divisional expropriation, return of expropriated real estate, administra- tive act, principle of trust (loyalty) 1 PhD in law, professor of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Law and Administration. E-mail: womir@amu.edu.pl. ORCID: 0000-0002-2060-6638.