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Swedish Airbnb rental properties double in year

More than ten thousand Swedes are promoting their houses and apartments on Airbnb, double the number using the site a year ago. But reports suggest many are breaking housing association rules.

Published: 22 July 2015 08:59 CEST
Updated: 22 July 2015 10:15 CEST
Swedish Airbnb rental properties double in year
Apartment buildings in central Stockholm. Photo: Helena Wahlman/TT

Airbnb, which offers locals the chance to rent out their homes or spare rooms to travellers visiting their city, says that almost twice as many Swedes are offering their properties online this summer compared to in 2014.

According to figures from the company released in Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, more than 6000 Stockholm homes are now listed on the site. Just over 1000 Gothenburg properties and 600 spaces in Malmö are also being offered. Across Sweden, more than 10,000 homes are available for tourists.

But there are concerns that many people are breaking strict housing association rules by secretly sub-letting their rented properties, causing potential insurance hazards, upsetting neighbours and risking having their leases taken away.

Under Swedish law, residents with a first hand rental contract (an agreement with the owner of the building) are only supposed to sub-let their apartments under certain circumstances, such as because they are moving in with a partner or going away to study. The tenant co-operation board for the building (bostadsrättsföreningen) or the landlord is supposed to sign off any second hand lease.

Property lawyer Line Zandén told Dagens Nyheter that first-hand renters found to be promoting their apartments on Airbnb would almost certainly lose their contracts if discovered; bad news in cities such as Stockholm where in some areas there is a 20-year waiting list for this kind of rental lease.

But she said that the rules for Swedes owning condominiums in new apartment complexes were less clear.

While some buildings do allow owners to offer their homes as vacation rentals, paperwork listing the tenants’ names usually needs to be submitted to housing boards in advance, which can be tricky with Airbnb where many bookings are last-minute.

“By the time the board have had time to send out their documents, the tourists have long moved out,” explained Zandén.

Several campaign groups have called for tougher national rules to crack down on Airbnb use in Sweden in the wake of a number of high profile cases where apartments were severely damaged by customers and one incident in Stockholm which saw a property turned into a brothel in 2012.

But others – including Zandén – argue for a more liberal approach which would allow owners and tenant co-operation boards the chance to fully debate the use of properties for Airbnb rental and come up with their own interpretations of existing laws.

She suggested that this was a better approach than allowing some people to continue renting their homes in secret.

“The more tourists that pass through, the greater the risk that one or more of them does not take care of the apartment or property as they should,” she told Dagens Nyheter.

Airbnb, which operates in 190 countries, has already proved controversial in many of its core markets.

The government of Spain's Catalonia region fined the holiday apartment rental site €30,000 ($40,000) for what it described as a “serious” breach of local tourism laws in July 2014.

In France, hoteliers penned an open letter to their prime minister in February, urging him to even out the competition amid fears that too many customers were opting to stay in Airbnb apartments to avoid paying more expensive hotel prices.

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PROPERTY

INTERVIEW: ‘Most foreigners in Sweden don’t know they can get back excess rent’

In Sweden, people subletting apartments are not allowed to charge more in rent than they themselves pay. But foreign subtenants don't always know this. We asked Roland Sjölin, lawyer at the Swedish Tenants' Association, about how to get back excess rent.

Published: 18 April 2024 15:19 CEST
Updated: 21 April 2024 08:12 CEST
INTERVIEW: 'Most foreigners in Sweden don't know they can get back excess rent'

More and more of the people asking the Swedish Tenants’ Association, Hyresgästföreningen in Swedish, for help with excess rent are foreigners, Sjölin told The Local in an interview.

“The problem is that if you’re coming from another country, and you’re subletting an apartment, you’re probably not familiar with the rules in Sweden, because in other countries, it might be okay to overcharge your tenants.” 

He said that clients from India in particular seeking help from the association were now “very common”. 

“Many people come here to work as engineers in the IT sector and then have to rent somewhere,” he said, adding that as a group Indians appeared to be “very aware of their rights.”

Sweden’s rental sector is heavily regulated, with first hand contracts negotiated between landlords and the Tenants’ Association, and the rent that can be charged for second-hand contracts limited to only a small fraction above what the first-hand renter pays. 

“You’re not allowed to make any profit subletting an apartment in Sweden,” Sjölin explains. “You can only charge the subletting tenant the same rent as you [the first-hand tenant] are paying to your landlord, and then you can add the costs for internet and electricity, and perhaps a parking lot, if that is included.” 

Tenants’ Association lawyer Roland Sjölin. Photo: supplied.

You can also add a påslag or “markup”, if you are renting out the apartment fully furnished, but this cannot exceed more than 15 percent of the rent. 

That doesn’t mean that most landlords follow the law. The competition for rental apartments, especially in Stockholm, is so intense, that unscrupulous sublet landlords often try to get away with charging well over the legal amount, charging what is known in Sweden as ockerhyra, or “excess rent” and hoping that their tenants are too desperate to complain.  

What many foreigners do not realise is that even after the rental period is over, they can still get back any excess rent they have paid by applying to the Rental Board or Hyresnämnden, which functions like a court judging rental disputes. 

“If you have the evidence then it’s fairly easy,” Sjölin said. “I get a new case every second week on repayment of unfair rent, and I think that I win most of them.” 

“Nowadays, you can get paid back excess rent up to 24 months back in time, so people tend to get more money,” he added. “In some cases, they can get 200,000 kronor. In other cases, perhaps it’s only 30,000 kronor or 60,000 kronor. It depends on how long you have rented the apartment, and how excessive the rent you’ve been paying has been.”

The first step is to establish what would have been a fair rent, either by asking your landlord what they themselves pay directly or by checking with the Tenants’ Association.

“Because we negotiate most rents in Sweden, we normally know what the firsthand rent is,” Sjölin explained.

Then you need to collect together your evidence.

“It’s a good thing to have a written contract and also papers from your bank showing that you paid rent every month, and perhaps photographs of the apartment, so the rental board can get an idea of the apartment you were renting and what would be a fair rent, and also the termination for the contract so you can show the court how long you’ve been living in the apartment.” 

But Sjölin underlined that since Sweden has free burden of evidence, none of this is essential. 

“Even if you’ve been paying in cash, if you have witnesses who can testify what you were paying each month, you still have a chance of getting your money back. It’s a bit more tricky, but I’ve won two cases like that this year.” 

People in Sweden, he explained, tend to wait until the rental period is over before seeking to get paid back excess rent rather than challenging their landlord while they are still living in the apartment. 

“You don’t have any legal protection for your home for the first two years, so if you bring the matter up with the person you’re renting the apartment from you risk losing your contract and having to move out, so most people wait until they’re supposed to move anyway,” he said.

If you apply to the rental board for a refund close to the day you move out, you can then make your landlord pay back all excess rent paid in the 24 months leading up to the date you contacted the rental board.

If you are a member of the Tenants’ Association, you can contact them and ask for help with your application, but there are also specialist companies, like Orimlig Hyra AB who will buy your case off you and give you a refund within 48 hours, saving you a long wait in exchange for a cut of the money reclaimed. 

Sjölin said that the rental board normally took about 8 months to come to a judgement, but that if the person with the first hand contract appeals, that could extend the waiting time by between six months and a year.

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