Tomträtt

You own the house, but not the land

With tomträtt (a ground lease) you own the building, but the land beneath it belongs to someone else, usually the municipality or the state. In return you pay an annual fee to use the land, known as tomträttsavgäld (the ground rent). The arrangement is set out in chapter 13 of jordabalken (the Swedish Land Code). It is not the same as äganderätt (freehold), where both the house and the land are yours.

The fee is fixed in ten-year periods

The ground rent is paid every year and stays the same throughout each rent period. Unless something else has been agreed, a period runs for ten years. Before each new period the rent can be reviewed, and it is then set based on what the land is worth at that point plus a reasonable rate of interest on that value. If the parties cannot agree, the matter is decided by the Land and Environment Court.

This is the main thing to keep an eye on: the rent can change at the next review, and because it tracks the land value, it can go up if the land has risen in value. How big any increase turns out to be varies between municipalities, so there is no single figure that applies everywhere.

What to do as a buyer

Ask the estate agent what the ground rent is today and when the current rent period ends, so you know when a review could come up. Also ask whether the municipality offers friköp, meaning the option to buy the land outright, and roughly what that usually costs. Once the purchase is complete, you need to apply to register your ground lease (inskrivning av tomträttsinnehav) with Lantmäteriet (the land registration authority) within three months.