edp

I have been in Sweden over a year - probably the hardest, most frustrating year of my life so I thought I would write down something practical for anyone in a similar situation.

Firstly, coming to Sweden without work, or lots of money, or a sambo, or somewhere to live is really, really unadvisable. If you have none of those, I would seriously not advise coming here. I came here travelling and met a sambo and I have stayed. Obviously any foreign country is difficult as you have to understand the rules and bureaucracy. If you have moved here from an EU country because of a relationship with a Swede and you haven't a job then the following might help:

Make sure you are registered with Migrationsverket as living with your sambo. This will need certain information from your sambo that they may need to get from Skatteverket. I found a little work and was advised to use this by migrationsverket - wrong! Unless you have fulltime, permanent work your registration status will not be better than 'visitor looking for work' and you won't get a personnummer.

When you have got the correct residents status - basically a 2 year residents permit then you need to go to Skatteverket. This seems a grey area to me because I was told over and over that I needed proof of sufficient finances and private medical insurance to get a personnummer. Having got the correct residents status, I reapplied via an Irishman at Skatteverket and i was shocked to see that it went through in a week and I had a personnummer.

With your personnummer, get to Arbetsformedling and register and get to SFI and register. SFI courses pay a bonus of over £1000 if you pass the exams - C i think - in a year. If you have a status like mine, EU citizen, not working, living with sambo, you are entitled to the bonus although i'm sure that doesnt mean you get it. You will need good Swedish to work and to do courses that are delivered in Swedish. Unfortunately if you haven't come here with a job then you WILL need to learn Swedish.

Register with arbetsformedling. If you have a personnummer then you can get aktivitetsstod. You can also claim benefits through a reciprical agreement with the UK assuming you have paid your 'stamps' in the UK. I can imagine this would probably be a nightmare but you are entitled. Aktivitetsstod is probably the way to go because it will get you out working, meeting people and earning a little money - 177kr a day. Find a nice company who does something that you are skilled in or just interested in and ask them if they will take you on. It doesn't cost them anything and they get some free labour. You can do this for 6 months and it seems your best option to work within the Swedish system, make friends and learn the language.

Sweden is rule driven and quite efficient in the execution of certain state rules. If you understand the rules and make sure you follow them then life is so much easier. Anarchy will never take off in Sweden, mores the pity.

Hope this helps someone.

Arctic Fox

I'm sure it will.

I often wonder how folks, who may be trying to sell Swedish property (which they own) deal with the '10-year guarantee' against so-called hidden defects, which is one aspect of Swedish property conveyancing.

One Swedish estate agent offers varudeklarerat - a service including a full property inspection, by Swedish company, Anticimex, backed by insurance against 'hidden faults' - and paid for by the property seller. (The insurance transfers to the buyer on completion).

But - what happens if the buyer finds a fault that is not covered by the insurance? Or the insurance company is pig-headed about disputing a claim? The buyer can still take the seller to court, in fact it is their only option!, (which is exactly what you thought you had insured against! .

Also, what if there is only 1 buyer, and they refuse to agree to the insurance take-over? Will you still sell?

I don't know - I don't always trust insurance products, and does anyone want to spend ten years potentially worrying about a possible claim against them?

edp

wow i didn't know that. It wouldn't surprise me this level of caution. It doesn't surprise me that Swedish people are not great migrators. Unravelling from Swedish society must be a nightmare, especially if you also believe the hype about it being the model country.

Extreme

I found this link that describes hidden defects pretty well:

http://www.nordea.se/Privat/L%C3%A5n...el/204494.html

I would like to point these parts out especially:
"I princip ansvarar säljaren för brister i byggnadens konstruktion eller utförande."

"Felet ska inte vara förväntat med hänsyn till fastighetens pris, ålder och skick."

Google Translate:
"In principle, the seller is responsible for the defects in the building's design or execution. "

"The error should not be expected in view of the property price, age and condition."

So, we are not talking about a dish washer breaking at year 8 or a toilet that starts leaking.

I wouldn't lose any sleep over it and probably not get the insurance.

Blackladder

Hi,
There are types of property inspection - also carried out by Anticimex - that are not linked to any insurance and are simply intended to check the condition of the property before a sale. Otherwise, Extreme is absolutely right, the kind of fault envisaged in the Act is not a simple maintenance problem, but an estate agent explained to me that it related to things like: a home owner carries out some alteration to his house (eg enlarging the kitchen) and in the process removes whole or part of a bearing structure, a concrete beam for instance, which, after repapering and painting etc, would be unnoticeable from the outside - until it decided to collapse!

Older properties can be subject to subsidance or flooding in the cellar which might give rise to a 'Jericho syndrome' (my own phrase) and this of course has to be corrected before becoming dangerous.
Blackie

Arctic Fox

With respect to posts 4 & 5, I think you are missing the point here – which is how do you protect yourself against potential seller’s claims in the future? – rather than a general point about surveys and the ’10-year guarantee’ itself

I’m trying to achieve a quick sale of a house. Having spent five years trying to live in Sweden, on a UK-based pension (a lot of which has been whittled away by punitive taxes) I found that it was just not economically viable. I thought that varudeklarerat (which does offer a survey, backed up by insurance against future claims against hidden defects) would help a sale.

My house is nearly 100 years old: if you’re relaxed about the possibility of having no insurance at all, against so-called ‘hidden faults’ - fine (and I never said we are only talking about ‘dish washers’ and ‘toilets’ here)

I’ve now had a reply from the estate agent, who says (among other things) that its the buyer’s duty to inspect before the purchase – especially areas not covered in the inspection.

I posted here because I wondered whether anyone on this forum had 'first-hand' experience of the varudeklarerat product.

Thanks for reading.

Blackladder

Hi Arctic Fox,
sorry, in your first line, do you mean 'a potential buyer's claims in the future'?
I'm hazarding a guess that your agent is from 'Länsfastigheter' or something like that. We also have a house, built 1914, now out on the market. The agent tried to push the varudeklarerat thing on us, but we found it was a bit of a catchpenny. The reason is that it is the buyer's duty to check on the condition of the house ('besiktning') for which the buyer pays. It is of course the seller's duty to tell the truth when drawing up the documents for the sale with the estate agent (you probably got some form of questionnaire from the agent to complete - with questions like 'Are you aware of any occurrence of damp in the house since you bought it?') and so on. If the buyer waives his right to carry out a 'besiktning' at his own expense, then that's his fault if the house subsequently proves to suffer from some defect. In no way can he come back at you with some claim for a 'concealed fault'. Hope I have expressed myself clearly.
Blackie

Arctic Fox

Hi

Yes you're right - I should have said 'potential buyer' not seller.

Thanks for pointing this out and sharing your experiences