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Swede turns one krona church into dream home

Property prices in Sweden may have doubled over the last 10 years, but there are still opportunities to get a real bargain in the countryside. Dennis Toth tells The Local how he renovated an old church he bought for just one Swedish krona.

Published: 21 October 2015 15:38 CEST
Swede turns one krona church into dream home
The church near Landskrona. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Dennis Toth is currently transforming the church, Örja kyrka outside Landskrona in the south of Sweden, into a 350 square metre private home for his family of seven.

“All the paperwork is basically done, now it’s time to start the renovation. I wanted to make sure I had everything planned out before I started the work,” Toth tells The Local.

It was after seeing an article about the church in local newspaper Helsingborgs Dagblad that Dennis Toth contacted the Church of Sweden to ask about buying the building after hearing that it was on the verge of being destroyed.

Officials immediately organized a meeting with him to show the building. Toth says he instantly decided to buy the church, which was built in 19th century.

The price? One Swedish krona (around 0,12$).

“They would rather give it to me than demolish it, they said,” he explains.

He says he wants to keep as much as possible of the old decor in his new home. The pulpit will become a bar and the church tower a terrace, for example.

The 35-year-old says the churchyard will become a public memorial.

The purchase and current renovation have already captured attention in Swedish media, and his story is spreading fast on social media.

“It’s quite exceptional in Sweden to transform churches into private houses, I guess that’s why everybody’s reacting. It’s far more common in countries like the UK and Germany.”

The attention doesn’t seem to disturb Dennis Toth, who has been involved in the building industry his whole working life and will carry out the renovations himself.

“I like the attention this gets, as long as it’s positive,” he says.

How much the work will cost is still unclear. The Church of Sweden estimated that it would cost around 17 million Swedish kronor ($2,053,760) to make the church inhabitable. The building has not been used since the mid-1990s.

“I don’t know what the exact total cost will be yet, I’d like to keep it a secret. Everything’s about money nowadays,” says Toth.

The Church of Sweden, which formally held the position as state church up until 2000, owns around 3,400 church buildings in the country, a number which is reducing.

More and more churches are being sold or demolished, as a consequence of a stretched economy and the dropping number of members.

The church had around 6,000,000 members last year. But it loses around one percent every year, according to its own statistics. 

Article written by The Local's intern August Håkansson.

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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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