Friday, July 31, 2009

Registering the land

Last month, Tony brought us a form from the Swedish tax authorities (in Swedish, Skatteverket), showing that he was still owner of the land we bought from him nearly two years ago.

It turns out I had been careful about registering the house with the kommun, but I didn't complete registration of the land sale. Tony and Janne gave us information on how to handle the process; they both made a number of phone calls, and Janne gave me a couple of draft letters to send to the right people.

The first thing was to clear the sale through Värmdö Kommun. The kommun retains right of first refusal on the sale of all land in the archipelago. Usually, they want to keep hold of shoreline and blocks of land for nature preserves, so I wasn't worried about their wanting dibs on my little rock. A couple of weeks ago, I gathered all the documents, wrote a cover letter in Swedish, and sent it all off to Värmdö.

Yesterday I got the good news that all was approved, and I received my land contract with the appropriate seals and other documentation. That allowed me to make the next step, which was to send their OK and another letter off to the Lantmäteriet, the authority in charge of land registrations.

Assuming I've done it all correctly, the land will then be registered in my name and Tony won't be bothered by the tax authorities any longer. Of course, that means I'll be bothered by the people at Skatteverket, but that's for a future post.

No comments: