Response to interpellation 2025/26:413 on a new pre-emption law for better housing in the country
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
S argues that a municipal right of first refusal is a powerful tool to combat social dumping and provide people with better housing 1. S believes that current legislation does not stop unserious actors from buying up bankruptcy estates 1 and that the problems have worsened since the previous law was abolished 2. S asks whether the government is willing to present a new right of first refusal law to strengthen smaller municipalities' ability to act 3 and wants municipalities to make restrictions on private property rights 4. KD argues that the existing regulatory framework provides sufficiently sharp tools to intervene against unserious landlords 5 and that these tools can be used significantly earlier than in the case of a bankruptcy 6. KD believes that it is not relevant to discuss a new right of first refusal law because powerful tools already exist in the legislation 7. KD emphasizes that municipalities are expected to use the existing tools and take action 8.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Infrastruktur- och bostadsministern Andreas Carlson (KD)
Mr. Speaker! Adrian Magnusson has asked me if I see any reason to act in light of what has happened in Perstorp Municipality and investigate the conditions for a new municipal pre-emption right.
I want to begin by emphasizing that restoring safety in Sweden is a high priority for the government. All people, regardless of housing situation, have the right to a safe living environment.
The government is carrying out extensive work to increase safety in society. It is both about strengthening crime fighting and about measures that more directly target safety in our residential areas.
In my capacity as a government minister, I am precluded from commenting on the handling of individual cases by municipalities or authorities. On a general level, however, it is important to emphasize that there are legal tools to intervene against property owners who do not manage their properties in an acceptable manner.
Through the Rent Act, that is, Chapter 12 of the Land Code, and in the Housing Management Act (1977:792), there is protective legislation that makes it possible to intervene against rental property owners who neglect their properties. This can involve an order to take action, an order of management, or, in the extreme, compulsory management.
In some cases, other measures may also become relevant, such as, with the support of the Planning and Building Act (2010:900), requiring an owner to demolish a dilapidated building at their own expense, or, with the support of the Expropriation Act (1972:719), expropriating a grossly neglected property. The Expropriation Act can also be used even when a neglected property is not offered for sale.
The Government assesses that the existing regulatory framework provides sufficiently sharp tools for municipalities that need to intervene against unscrupulous landlords who do not manage their properties in an acceptable manner. That being said, the Government continues to closely monitor developments in the area.
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Mr. Speaker! The interpellation is based on a report that came a few months ago, namely that the real estate company Kupolen in Perstorp Municipality went bankrupt.
Kupolen is the largest property owner in Perstorp with 450 apartments. That is not a small amount considering that Perstorp municipality has a total of just over 7,000 inhabitants. The property company in question has been highlighted in a number of reviews in a number of different media outlets. There has been writing about people who have lived in substandard apartments.
The newspaper Hem & Hyra wrote as recently as yesterday about the company contacting bailiffs across the country to pursue tenants. The requirements to obtain a rental contract in parts of Kupolen's portfolio in Perstorp have been deliberately set very low. It has been clear that by using substandard apartments, they have attempted to attract people who, for various reasons, have no possibility of doing anything other than saying yes to the housing that is available.
It has furthermore been written that the Swedish Migration Agency has placed people in the apartments. These are people who are in a vulnerable situation and who are happy to have a roof over their heads at all.
The people who have already lived in Kupolen's housing, Mr. Speaker, have seen their homes become increasingly substandard as the maintenance has not been handled. It is a concern, to say the least, and I have personally seen it on-site in Perstorp. Mold in the apartments, balconies that cannot be used, and broken windows that are not replaced are some examples of how the housing that people are forced to live in can look.
The future for the entire property stock in Perstorp is now uncertain, and no one knows what will happen with the 450 apartments. There is great concern both among those who live in the apartments and among the municipal leadership in Perstorp that an unserious property company, which perhaps pursues an even worse housing policy idea than Kupolen has done, will buy up the properties. In the best of worlds, a capital-strong owner would have stepped in and bought up the properties. It could have led to an upgrade and hopefully to people receiving decent housing. The chairman of the municipal executive board, Ronny Nilsson, argues in the article in Hem & Hyra that this is however unlikely, and I agree with him.
Mr. Speaker! Something that could have ensured that a new unscrupulous buyer would be kept at bay would have been a municipal right of first refusal. Then a municipality, as in the case of Perstorp, could have bought up the properties because it is so important for Perstorp municipality. It could have ensured that excessively low income requirements, deteriorating housing, and the continued referral of people to substandard apartments in Perstorp had been avoided. The apartments would have been renovated, and in cases where that was not possible, they might have been demolished.
Mr. Speaker! A right of first refusal is not a radical measure. Sweden has had a municipal right of first refusal and could very well have it again. Investigations have proposed it. As far as I can discern, the Minister rejects the idea in his response and instead goes through other legislation that he believes can solve the situation. But no legislation would stop an unserious actor from buying up the bankruptcy estate and continuing with the deeply harmful housing brokerage that has been conducted in Perstorp.
Mr. Speaker! Housing is a right. People should not have to live in apartments where they are afraid to go out on the balcony, where it blows through windows that have not been replaced, or where mold creeps up along the bathroom walls.
Why is the minister so dismissive of proceeding with the issue of a municipal right of first refusal, which even the investigation that this government has changed the supplementary directives for has put forward proposals about?
It is clear that unserious property owners exist in the Swedish housing market and that powerful tools are needed to address the problems. A municipal right of first refusal is such a powerful tool. If we are to truly combat social dumping and be able to contribute to people in the country getting better housing, we need better tools. With a municipal right of first refusal, we can go some way toward combating the social dumping that is taking place in our country and providing people with better housing.
Anna Wallentheim (S)
Mr. Speaker! I choose to join this interpellation debate today because it concerns, among other things, Perstorp Municipality. It is a small municipality in my constituency, where the consequences are great when something goes wrong. Perstorp is one of Sweden's smallest municipalities in terms of population, with just over 7,000 inhabitants. It is a place with a strong industrial tradition, where many know each other and where one is close to nature. But it is also a municipality where the labor market is limited, where the socioeconomic challenges are great, and where the opportunity to choose housing is not a given.
When a single company owns as many as 450 apartments in a municipality as small as Perstorp, it is no longer just about real estate. It is about people's homes, about security, and about everyday life. I have personally met residents who testify to black mold, neglected maintenance, and a feeling that no one is really taking responsibility. Together with the interpellor Adrian Magnusson, I have visited some of these apartments and met those who live there. It is not dignified. It is not reasonable, and it is not a housing standard we should accept in Sweden.
How poorly these properties and apartments have been managed could be a debate in itself. But now that the real estate company has gone bankrupt, a new anxiety is created – not for what has been, but for what is to come. Who will take over? Will it get better, or does it risk becoming even worse?
Mr. Speaker! The Minister referred in his answer to the fact that there are tools, for example the Rent Act, the Housing Management Act and compulsory management. Yes, those are tools that exist. But that is not what this interpellation is about. We must talk about what my colleague Adrian Magnusson highlights in his interpellation, namely the view on a new municipal right of first refusal.
In a municipality like Perstorp, a bankruptcy has completely different consequences than it would in a large city or in a large municipality. There is no broad market with alternative landlords here. There is no possibility to opt out of a poor landlord here. People stay here. That is why the question of a municipal pre-emption right is relevant – not as a universal solution but as a tool for small municipalities. It becomes a tool for action, a tool to be able to secure long-term stability, and a tool to put social responsibility first.
Mr. Speaker! I would have liked an answer to Adrian Magnusson's question. I wonder if the Minister is open to at least investigating the issue again. We need to gather facts. We need to see what could actually make a difference, because when people feel anxiety for their homes, it is not enough to say that there are other tools. It is this tool that is being requested. It would be incredibly important for Perstorp municipality.
We must ask ourselves what really works. If the tools we have are not sufficient, is it not the state's duty to be prepared to review other solutions?
Infrastruktur- och bostadsministern Andreas Carlson (KD)
Mr. Speaker! As I have said, I cannot comment on the circumstances in the individual case, but when it comes to different types of properties where there are problems, there is already legal basis to intervene, not least against poorly managed rental properties. Therefore, I mean that it is not relevant to bring those measures up in a debate that is about exactly what Adrian Magnusson said about there needing to be powerful tools.
The disadvantage that the interpellator highlights is that a property needs to be put on the market for the pre-emption legislation to be applicable. What exists in the Land Code and in the Planning and Building Act, which I described, are tools that a municipality can employ without a property being for sale.
There is a possibility for a remedial order in Chapter 12 of the Land Code. This means, in practice, that the landlord can be ordered to remedy defects in the apartment. That tool exists in the legislation. There is also a tool where the Rent Tribunal can issue a renovation order according to Section 18 of the Land Code. It is therefore not a question of minor errors and defects, but a more fundamental requirement that an apartment must maintain an acceptable standard regarding, among other things, heating, access to hot and cold water, and the possibility of cooking.
When problems are not just about a single apartment but about an entire property being poorly managed, there is specific legal support in the Housing Management Act. There is also a possibility for the Rent Tribunal to issue a management order. If such an order is judged insufficient, there is a possibility to proceed to compulsory management.
There is also a possibility for the municipality to ultimately take over a property through redemption if the situation is so serious that even compulsory management is not sufficient. As if that were not enough, there is also, according to the Expropriation Act, a possibility to expropriate a property. There is explicit support for this when it concerns gross neglect.
This applies even if a property is not on the market. The members are highlighting a solution that involves a right of first refusal. All the possibilities I listed already exist today. It is therefore relevant to raise them, Mr. Speaker, in a debate like this. There are also mandates according to PBL.
The Government is looking at the issue of pre-emption. We have, through supplementary directives to the investigation working on this, directed it towards organized crime as well as providing opportunities to strengthen the protection of the interests of the military and civil defense. There are proposals for pre-emption legislation for exactly those purposes, which are being prepared in the Government Offices.
There is no reason to wait to use the powerful tools that exist in the legislation and which therefore also apply even if a property is not for sale. That is what the members miss in their reasoning. With that said, I therefore cannot comment on the circumstances in the individual case. There is a general toolbox that is powerful, just as Adrian Magnusson called for.
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Mr. Speaker! What the Minister misses in his reasoning, however, is that this has happened. We have a situation in Perstorp with a large property owner who has gone bankrupt. A municipal right of first refusal would, in this case, mean that the municipality could buy these 450 apartments, the properties that Kupolen owns, and in that way begin to rectify the problems that the poor market idea that Kupolen has pursued has caused. That is actually the problem here.
Kupolen – and surely many other real estate companies in this country that have done similar things – have actively pursued a housing policy idea where the aim has been to attract people with payment defaults and other difficulties in life that one must have full respect for. The whole idea was that those people should move into the apartments. This has led to large debts and to a lack of maintenance.
Now one is in a situation where 450 apartments – there are of course many more who live in them – are owned by a property owner who has gone bankrupt. That is where we stand. Had we had different legislation and had we not had a bourgeois government in 2010 that actively abolished the municipal right of first refusal – for example, the Kristdemokraterna voted for it in this chamber – this could perhaps have been rectified.
Since 2010, the problems have only worsened. The problems with social dumping, which I hope the Minister can acknowledge exist, for example in Perstorp, have worsened since 2010. It is simply a matter of stating the fact. I think we must be able to discuss what is happening out in the country. In this case, which we are discussing anyway, a municipal right of first refusal could have meant that the municipality that sees the problems that exist in Perstorp could have stepped in and purchased these 450 apartments.
The Minister also refers, both in his initial response and in his second contribution, to a lot of other tools that he believes would be more powerful. Perhaps they are. The Minister is welcome to state how many times these tools have been used over the last 15 years and what the case law looks like, because I actually do not have a handle on that. But if these tools are so powerful, there are probably very many examples of when they have been used to address the type of problems that now exist in Perstorp and many other municipalities.
It is the case, Mr. Speaker, that social dumping occurs in this country. We have a situation where people who, for various reasons, have faced difficulties in life or find themselves in a vulnerable situation are lured to other municipalities. This, of course, creates a difficult situation for the political leadership in these municipalities.
In Perstorp, for example, there are stories that have been confirmed by both the media and others who have examined this. The municipality has said that it can pay the rent for the first month for those who move to Perstorp, but after that, one must manage on one's own. People have been actively encouraged to settle in these health-hazardous apartments, which have black mold and where broken windows are not replaced.
There is, after all, no prohibition against making bad deals in this country. There are many examples of this throughout history. The Dome has obviously made a bad deal, and the great danger now is that a similar actor, with an equally bad market idea, will come, which we cannot stop – because we cannot stop bad market ideas. The risk is that the people who live in these apartments, just like the Perstorp municipal leadership, will then find themselves in the same situation – that nothing will get better, but rather will get worse.
This could be a chance for a municipality like Perstorp to perhaps get a new start: to see that one can do something about this property stock and give the people who live in the properties a better life instead of, as now, risking that a new unprofessional actor will come along who has an equally bad or, as Anna Wallentheim said, even worse housing policy idea than Kupolen.
A municipal right of first refusal would have been a powerful tool, if it had not been abolished by the bourgeois government in 2010. I can only regret that this government does not seem to be prepared to look at the issue.
Anna Wallentheim (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer – even though in the answer we have received there is obviously a gap between the tools that exist on paper and the reality that the people in Perstorp live in.
This is exactly what is the core. We know that other legislation exists; interventions are possible. But are they used to the extent that the Minister refers to? Unfortunately, the existing systems are not sufficient in practice, especially not in smaller municipalities with limited resources and a very one-sided property ownership. We have a problem in that a company owned so extremely many properties in a small municipality like Perstorp and failed those people who lived there.
Mr. Speaker! Neither I nor my colleague Adrian Magnusson are seeking any quick, ill-considered proposals or reforms. We are seeking a willingness to try new paths, in this case, that the government could consider presenting a new pre-emption law to help specifically smaller municipalities around the entire country. It is about looking at how we can strengthen municipalities' opportunities to act and taking the reality of small municipalities seriously.
I believe that this is what it boils down to. The alternatives are not here, and municipalities must be able to take their responsibility and help their citizens. Perstorp deserves it, just like all the people who have been affected, not only in Perstorp but people in the same situation all around our country. There, politics has a responsibility, and a pre-emption right could make a difference.
Infrastruktur- och bostadsministern Andreas Carlson (KD)
Mr. Speaker! I have answered the question regarding pre-emptive rights: We are preparing the investigation proposals with the aim that they shall lead to countering organized crime and strengthening the protection for the interests of the military and civil defense.
I hope that this debate will lead to more people opening their eyes to how many extensive tools actually exist in current legislation, which can be introduced and used significantly earlier. It is actually two questions that I think are hanging in the air, Mr. Speaker: Why should a municipality wait until a company goes bankrupt? And why not use the tools that already exist?
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Mr. Speaker! I hope that when we leave this debate, the Minister will go out and tell the country's municipalities: You need to take action against these types of property owners, who are all over the country. You need to ensure that you take over the management of these properties, if necessary. You need to ensure that you make restrictions on private property rights, because it is more important that we combat social dumping and that people have a right to a home than that you protect private property rights at any cost.
I hope that the Minister comes out from here today and announces that this is the government's line: We shall intervene. We shall be ready to act against this type of property owner. We expect you to do so – bourgeois, Social Democratic, and Sweden Democrat municipal councillors across the country. We expect you to act when you see that this type of social dumping occurs and that properties stand and decay, and that you do not let these property owners get away with it.
This is what I hope the minister will do after this debate, and I hope that it will be the clear message from the government.
I also hope that the government, in its rhetoric after this debate, will be clear that social dumping is a problem in Sweden. It is a problem that people, in some sense, are placed in certain municipalities, that people are encouraged to move to certain municipalities, and that certain municipalities simply tell people that we can pay part of the rent for the one who moves to Perstorp, or whatever it may be for municipality.
I hope that the government is much clearer in its rhetoric after this debate: We cannot let private property rights be inviolable. We must ensure that people have good housing and that social dumping is combated with force and clarity. Social dumping is a problem in this country.
Infrastruktur- och bostadsministern Andreas Carlson (KD)
Mr. Speaker! I want to thank you for the debate. It has highlighted a problem that needs to be highlighted. It has also highlighted that there are tools that can be used. Adrian Magnusson calls for rhetoric, but this is rather about law. There is a comprehensive toolbox.
I want, Mr. Speaker, to give a very clear message to both Adrian Magnusson and those listening to this debate: My expectation of all of Sweden's municipalities is that they should take decisive action and use the tools that exist. Why should a municipality wait until a company goes bankrupt and on a pre-emptive bid, which the members are calling for, to use it as a last resort when there is a number of measures that can be taken long before then for all the residents in properties and apartments that do not meet the standard? Use the legislation! Use the tools! Take decisive action! This I want to emphasize.
I would like to thank the members for this debate. I believe that we are actually quite in agreement that the toolbox that exists makes it possible to take measures for the benefit of all those residents who today, in several cases, live under conditions that one can expect should not prevail in housing in Sweden.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.