The right to live

As I think I've mentioned before, we're going (still) through the process of renovating our apartment kitchen. We've gone with an IKEA cabinet system because it was flexible enough to fit our needs, it's a good price, and we don't have to buy everything at once. Which suits the budget. We figure that we've probably passed the halfway point now with our purchasing. As you don't do these thing every day, we've decided to also replace all the whiteware. Everything still worked, but it was all starting to get a bit dated. A couple of weeks back we had a bit of a blip in our selection process, with a requirement (and time frame) for a new kitchen oven fan suddenly being thrust upon us by the governing board for our building body corporate.

Body corporate apartments (bostadsrätt) were a new thing for me in Sweden. It all seemed a bit strange at first but now that I've figured it all out, it all makes perfect sense. At the risk of repeating myself, here's a quick summary. Everyone who lives in an apartment in the building owns a share of the entire building. You jointly own, and are jointly responsible for, the roof, outside walls, gardens, driveways, common areas, staircases, elevators, etc. In addition, you have exclusive rights to a specific apartment within the buiding. That right is your's forever. When you sell your share in the building, you are also selling your right to the apartment. You're free to sell your share whenever you like, for whatever price you like.

Once you've bought your building share, you then pay a monthly fee to cover all the costs for operating and maintaining the building, including your apartment. The fee is generally consists of a building maintenance charge, any loans associated with constructing the building, home heating costs, hot and cold water charges, rubbish removal, building insurances, cable television supply, and local government taxes. And so on. The monthly fee for each apartment is usually based around the percentage of the building that they occupy. A larger apartment will have a higher fee than a smaller apartment.

Now, I hear people complaining about this all the time. "I buy an apartment and then I have to pay rent !". That's just ignorance speaking. If you bought a house then you would have to pay all those same monthly costs that I listed above. The only difference with a bostadsrätt is that you only pay one monthly invoice, instead of paying 7 or 8 invoices if you owned a house. But the total cost is the same. And because it's the people who live in the building who set the monthly fee level, the charges are not profit driven. As opposed to a landlord's rental fee.

Within your own apartment, you're generally free to do whatever you like. We've completely renovated one of our bathrooms, painted and papered the entire place, and are now working our way through the kitchen. There are a few restrictions, in our building at least. Things like knocking internal walls out, or significantly changing the layout of the apartment, are likely to require the approval of the board. That's really to protect the value of the building, and the other apartments. If you do something that makes your apartment tough to sell then that can have a negative flow-on effect to the selling potential of the other apartments in the building. Otherwise though, you can do what you want inside your apartment.

So, our kitchen fan. All the kitchen fans in our building are connected to the central ventilation system. Which means that what we do can affect everyone else in the building. By law, the ventilation system in every apartment building must be inspected every 3 years. It's called an Obligatoriskt Ventilationskontroll, or OVK. The OVK checks that the airflows are what they should be and highlights any faults found. Which just happened to include our (and 3 others) kitchen fan. So that now means we've had to fast track the kitchen upgrade a little. Probably not a bad thing to have a bit of pressure applied. It's been a bit of a research task as well, as we've now discovered that most kitchen fans are not approved for use in apartment buildings. Something I had never considered. Learning something all the time.

Basic House Dictionary

After travelling down the slippery slope of property ownership, yet again, I've decided to start jotting down a few things I've learnt about Swedish property along the way. I must admit that, sitting back in New Zealand, it all looked pretty simple on the property websites. But some of the subtle differences have caught me offguard. There are 3 major types of accomodation you can purchase as a home. The first is a villa, or enfamiljshus. This is your run of the mill, standard house. You buy the house, and the plot of land it sits on. You pay rates to the kommun for roads, rubbish collection, water use, and sometimes for heating use. The second type is a rådhus, or "row house". It's essentially the same as a villa, but your neighbours' houses join to the two sides of your house. They are also generally smaller than a villa. Again, you generally get a bit of grass. And a fence if you are lucky. The 3rd type is known as bostadsrätt. This usually applies to apartments (lägenhet), but can also include a villa or rådhus. Bostadsrätt ("right to live") properties are generally much cheaper to purchase, because you're only buying the right to live there, and not the roof, windows, front door, or gardens. You pay a fixed monthly fee to a Body Corporate who maintain the building itself and the land. These fees can vary greatly so you need to add the monthly fee to the purchase price of the apartment, to get a true price comparison. Check on what is included, or excluded, in the monthly fee. A very cheap fee might exlude heating costs. Sometimes it might be cheaper long term to buy a house. If that's your thing. Sitting outside of this group of properties is the fritidshus. This is a holiday house, or stuga, and there are bucketloads of them scattered around the Swedish countryside. As a rule, you can only live in these properties on a temporary basis. For weekends or holidays. Not full time. I say, as a rule, because, depending on the circumstances, the local kommun may grant permission for a holiday house to be used as a home. If there is infrastructure in place, and it falls in line with the council's zoning plans etc. But it's not a right to do so. This is where Sweden differs from many othe countries. In NZ, a house is a house is a house. I would be perfectly entitled to move myself, my wife, children, my mother in law, and her 3 goats, into my beach front holiday home. And live there forever. Without exception. Not so in Sweden. Many fritidshus are classified as seasonal occupation only. So check that one out thoroughly before investing.