Let someone live in your home

If you let your tenant-owned flat, or let someone else live there full time, it is a sublet. It does not matter that the person is your child or that you charge no rent.

The board must give permission. The statutes describe how to apply and what the board looks at.

Permission is often limited in time. When it ends you need a new yes if the person is to stay.

If you still live there and only let a room in the same flat, the situation is different. As soon as someone else has the flat to themselves, assume that permission is required.

Keep in mind. Without the board’s permission you risk losing the tenant-owned flat. Ask the association before the person moves in.

You may not let someone else live full time in a rented flat without the landlord’s consent. That includes a child, and it includes a stay that is free.

Apply in writing. Say who will live there, for how long and why. The landlord must answer, and a refusal can in some cases be reviewed by the rent tribunal.

Handing over the key is not approval. Without a yes you can lose the contract.

Write a contract even if you are family. It should cover rent, time, notice, whether furniture is included, and who pays for electricity and internet.

Tenancy law usually applies to a full-time home. When you as a private person let your own home, for example a tenant-owned flat you normally live in, the Act on letting of a private home also applies.

The contract makes it clear what is rent and what is a loan of the flat. It protects you both if something changes.

Write whether the flat is let furnished or empty, and what happens to damage. Verbal promises are hard to prove.

Rent from a private home is taxed as capital income. You first make a standard deduction, and pay about 30 percent on what remains.

The deduction is 40,000 kr per person and year plus either 20 percent of the rent, for a house, or the part of the annual fee that relates to what you let, for a tenant-owned flat.

If you only let for part of the year, count the fee for those months. If you let one room, count only the share of the fee that belongs to that part.

The 40,000 kr deduction applies per person and year to all of your private letting together, not once per home.

Keep in mind. Calculate for your type of home. A house and a tenant-owned flat do not get the same extra deduction.

Lending the flat to a child for free is still something the association or the landlord must approve. A free stay does not remove the need for permission.

If you charge no rent, there is no rental income to tax. As soon as the child pays rent, or pays your costs in a way that is really rent, the amount can be taxable.

Still write a short contract: who lives there, for how long, that the rent is zero and how you end it. That helps with the association, and if something happens.

You may charge, but the rent must not be unreasonably high. What that means depends on which home you let.

For a tenant-owned flat the rent is based on your costs. You may cover your fee to the association, interest on the loan for the flat, and a reasonable amount if it is let furnished. Anything above that can be reclaimed by the tenant.

A house let under the Act on letting of a private home has a different ceiling, tied to capital cost and running costs. Do not charge a market rent only because someone is willing to pay it.

Keep in mind. A rent that is too high can be reclaimed later. Set the rent from your costs, not from listings nearby.

Someone who rents a home can gain security of tenure, a right to stay even if you want the contract to end.

The longer you let, the greater that risk. When you let your own home, security of tenure can be waived, but the waiver must be in writing.

Write it into the contract from the start if you want to be able to move back. A waiver added later is weaker.

Keep in mind. Without a written waiver the tenant may have the right to stay. Write it before they move in.

Tell your insurer that someone else is living in the home. An ordinary home policy assumes that you live there, and the terms can change when you sublet.

The tenant needs their own home insurance. Yours does not cover the tenant’s belongings, and often not the tenant’s liability either.

Ask to see the policy before you hand over the key. Put the requirement in the contract.

The person who lives in the home full time must be registered there. They report it themselves to the Swedish Tax Agency.

The register decides, among other things, where you vote and which health centre you belong to. An address at their parents’ is not enough if they actually live in your flat.

Associations and landlords often want the address to match. A change of address is not the same as permission to sublet. You need both.

Some banks want to know if the home is let. The loan terms may assume that you live there, and letting can affect the interest or the terms.

Read the loan agreement or ask the bank before the let starts. An email is often enough to learn whether they require notice.

Staying silent and hoping it will not be noticed is a poor protection if something happens to the loan or the insurance.