Mortgage for Swedish Property Purchase?

Spreadsheet_Geek

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone has any knowledge of the Swedish mortgage market at all or has any ideas of what to do in this situation?

My sister currently works in Stockholm and rents a house with a number of other people (at an extortionate rate apparently!).

I have the funds for a deposit (sister doesn't so couldn't get a mortgage anyway) but can't seem to find much information on how a UK resident can get finance for a home abroad.

Lots of banks seem to restrict UK mortgages to Spain, France, Gibraltar, US, Germany.

From what I can gather, some Swedish banks may lend to me based solely on my income and ability to pay a mortgage and any service charge of an apartment. But I haven't been able to find any specific banks, rates, deals for my circumstances.

Anyone have any more insight into this?

I should mention...it's only the mortgage situation I'm looking into at the moment - the whole BTL and tax situation will be looked into when I have a little more info on what's available. I don't even know if Sweden have different residential and BTL products at the moment. But anyone who is completely clued up on this, I'd welcome any more info!

Thanks!

SleeplessinScandinavia

Hi

I’m not the best expert as when I moved to Sweden, I transferred UK money to Sweden in order to buy our property, without ever having a mortgage. My partner (who is Swedish) took out a small mortgage in order to help finance work we wanted to do on the house.

However, a few thoughts:-

It used to be the case that once you have registered two years’ income with the Skatteverket (Swedish tax agency) there was no problem to obtain some kind of Swedish mortgage.( Swedbank and Handelsbanken are a couple of banks but there are others.)

I’ve been trying to sell my Swedish home and earlier this year, an estate agent told me that (certainly in the case of my property sale) 2,000,000 Swedish kronor is the maximum that a purchaser could borrow.

You have to stump up 15% deposit (of the agreed purchase price).

I’m told folks can claim tax relief on 30% of the interest paid to the bank every year (up to a limit of 100000kr.) Other expats here seem not bothered about paying off the principal sum :cool:


If your income increase each year (i.e. through inflation) is higher than the interest rate and you can additionally expect the property value to stay the same or increase, then theoretically you should gain on making minimal payments on the mortgage. I reckon that in Stockholm you've got virtually 100% chance of that being the case - but property values can also go down elsewhere.


As far as I remember there was a law change (made around 2008) attempting to address the EU 'freedom of movement' issue. I think if you are classed as a ‘Tax-Resident’ in Sweden, then you can also claim Swedish tax relief on the interest on UK mortgages . It does not have to be a loan from a Swedish bank.

For each property there is a taxable value, which determines the property tax you pay to the state each year. That should be stated on the sales doc. Other than that, it's only the cost of heating/maintenance that makes a difference.

Hope this helps.