Legal prism — 2026-09-19

The landlord is then obliged to repay any amounts collected in excess, together with interest under Section 6 of the Interest Act (1975:635) from the date of receipt.

A repayment order under Chapter 12, Section 55f of the Land Code may not extend further back than two years before the date of the application.

Core issue

Landlords and tenants in Värmland face a legal situation in which the rent for the current year has no fixed level until negotiations have been concluded or an arbitrator has resolved the dispute. The news item is an opinion piece by Fastighetsägarna Värmland (the Property Owners' Association of Värmland), and the legal core lies in the Rent Negotiation Act (1978:304): the negotiation regime renders a rent increase invalid if no negotiation has taken place, and the dispute must in practice be resolved by an arbitrator. The decisive provisions are Section 5 (obligation to negotiate upon rent increases), Section 23 (invalidity of agreements concluded without negotiation), and Chapter 12, Section 54 of the Land Code (Jordabalken) concerning the tenant's right to request a review of the rent terms.

Legal assessment

Under Section 5 of the Rent Negotiation Act, a negotiation regime imposes an obligation on the landlord to initiate negotiations regarding a rent increase, unless the increase relates to an optional addition and does not exceed a price recommended by the parties to the negotiation regime. The procedure follows Section 15: a party wishing to negotiate must submit a written request setting out the issues together with a proposal for the time and place, and a negotiation meeting shall be held within three weeks of the counterparty's receipt of the request. However, the source material sets no time limit on how long the negotiation itself may continue, which is the crux of the opinion piece's criticism of protracted proceedings.

• Where the tenancy falls within a negotiation regime, an agreement between landlord and tenant is invalid under Section 23 if negotiation under the negotiation regime has not taken place.
• An agreement is also invalid if it provides for a rent increase beyond what the negotiation agreement permits.
• Under Section 11a of the Act (1973:188) on Tenancy Boards and Rent Tribunals, a rent tribunal may not consider a landlord's claim for higher rent if negotiation under the negotiation regime has not taken place concerning the matter in dispute.
• The jurisdiction of the rent tribunal under Section 23 of the Rent Negotiation Act nevertheless covers disputes concerning rent terms as well as repayment obligations under the same provision.

Consequences

According to the source material, the scenarios going forward are as follows:

• Continued protracted negotiations without agreement, resulting in the matter being referred to an arbitrator for determination.
• The risk of retroactive rent increases once the decision is issued, with a repayment obligation for the landlord if the agreement proves invalid under Section 23.
• Long-term uncertainty for tenants' personal finances and for property owners' planning of operations, maintenance and investments.
• Political pressure for reform: the opinion piece calls on the parliamentary parties to reform the law on dispute resolution in collective rent negotiations, demanding a statutory right to refer disputes to arbitration and a limitation on negotiation periods. This is of practical significance primarily for tenants who do not know what rent applies, for property owners with uncertain revenues, and for rent tribunals and arbitrators handling the blocked disputes.

Correction. The most concrete change concerns the level of sanctions: the Consumer Agency's reference to the Postcode Lottery's 2025 annual report, showing lottery revenues of just over SEK 3.5 billion, signals that penalty calculations are now linked to the licence holder's revenues, giving the Consumer Agency an argument for seeking substantially higher penalties than before. Operators in the gambling industry should, when reviewing campaign material on social media, identify precisely the two elements the Consumer Agency has highlighted — social normalisation ("everyone should take part") and artificially created urgency — since a ruling by the PMD would constitute legally binding guidance that carries greater weight than the Consumer Agency's general guidelines, and would thereby determine the standard for the entire market in advance. The fact that the Riksdag rejected the legislative amendment means that, for the time being, the line will be drawn in the courts rather than in the statutory text, which makes the individual case the de facto standard for the industry.

Under Section 4 of the same chapter, marketing that contravenes Section 1 shall, upon application of Sections 5, 23 and 26 of the Marketing Act (2008:486), be deemed unfair towards consumers.

As a benchmark, in the KO's case against the credit intermediary Advea, the Patent and Market Court attached an interim penalty fine totalling SEK 3.5 million to its decision.

Core issue

Svenska Postkodföreningen faces civil injunction proceedings before the Patent and Market Court, not an administrative sanctions case. The Consumer Ombudsman has filed the application for a summons, and Postkodlotteriet must now respond to the KO's objections before the court. The precise legal question is whether an advertising film on Instagram, featuring falling prize cheques, SEK 101 million in gold-coloured text and a time-limited half-price offer, satisfies the moderation requirement in Chapter 15, Section 1 of the Gambling Act (2018:1138).

Legal assessment

The KO's objection is twofold and is to be assessed on the basis of an overall evaluation:

• The advertisement presents the lottery as socially attractive, something everyone ought to participate in.
• The time limitation and the final purchase date create the impression that there is urgency in buying a ticket.
• The Gambling Act requires that the information be limited to facts about the lottery and presented as objectively as possible. The KO seeks a prohibition subject to a penalty fine and, as regards the amount, refers to the 2025 annual report, which shows ticket revenues of just over SEK 3.5 billion. Case law on moderation in social media is sparse: in autumn 2022, the Riksdag rejected the adjusted moderation requirement in the bill "En förstärkt spelreglering" (A Strengthened Gambling Regulation), on the grounds that case law was in the process of being established, and the Swedish Consumer Agency's general advice on the marketing of games from 2025 is not binding. A court ruling would therefore carry greater weight than the guidance.

Consequences

If Postkodlotteriet is subject to a prohibition with a penalty fine, this will in practice apply to the entire industry's gambling advertising on social media, as the court would then establish what moderation entails for short, visual, algorithmically distributed formats.

• If the KO loses, the authority may need to await political regulation, since the Riksdag has already rejected the stricter requirement.
• The level of the penalty fine will have a signalling effect for the entire financial market: the higher the fine, the stronger the incentive for licence holders to keep their advertising objectively restrained.

In the event of such circumvention, the tenant has the same rights against Ibrahimović and Seger as if they had leased the tenancy directly to him.

The Supreme Court's denial of leave to appeal does not constitute a new review of the merits, but merely renders the Court of Appeal's assessment final.

Core issue

The tenant is entitled to remain in the property with security of tenure, as the Supreme Court has now denied Ibrahimović and Seger leave to appeal, meaning the Court of Appeal's judgment stands as final. The legal issue concerns whether an intermediary leasing arrangement—characterized by a community of interest between the property owners and the leasing company—can be disregarded, thereby allowing the tenant to step into the shoes of a direct tenant. The decisive factor is the application of the rules on security of tenure and reasonable rent under Chapter 12 of the Land Code (Jordabalken), which the courts found had been circumvented. The District Court applied the principle that when a legal relationship is exploited to circumvent tenancy legislation enacted for the tenant's protection, the tenant is granted the same legal standing as under a direct lease.

Legal assessment

The District Court established that "it can be assumed that the legal relationship has been exploited to circumvent provisions of tenancy legislation that are for the benefit of N.N."

• The Court of Appeal found a community of interest between the owner couple and the leasing company in relation to the tenant.
• The tenant asserted a strawman arrangement and the payment of excessive rent, supported by Supreme Court precedent.
• Termination involving a waiver of security of tenure requires a specific contractual form pursuant to Chapter 12, Sections 45 a and 56 of the Land Code; such a reservation had no legal effect within this structure.

Consequences

The tenant can remain in the property with the same rights as a primary tenant, including security of tenure and the right to a reasonable rent.

• The repayment of excess rent may become the subject of a dispute, as the tenant has claimed to have paid rent above the reasonable level.
• Ibrahimović and Seger have no remaining legal remedies within the ordinary court system following the Supreme Court's denial of leave to appeal.
• For other property owners leasing through corporate entities, the judgment signals that a community of interest can be pierced to the benefit of the tenant.

Correction. The article presents it as though a subtenant generally acquires the same rights as a direct tenant once a straw-man arrangement is uncovered. That is incomplete: under Chapter 12, Section 31 of the Land Code, BOTH conditions must be satisfied – a community of interest between the property owner and the first grantor, and the arrangement being used to circumvent the tenant's statutory protections. A community of interest alone is not sufficient, and a landlord may, in principle-based submissions, object that the arrangement was not intended to override the protective rules. Furthermore, the article asserts that the losing party in a tenancy dispute "must" pay the opposing party's legal costs; this contradicts the express rule introduced for tenancy disputes, under which each party in a dispute concerning rent, pursuant to Chapter 2, Section 5 of the Private Lettings Act (2026:772), bears its own legal costs in the Court of Appeal. The cost award of SEK 422,000 should therefore be specified as a costs order as recorded in the judgment, but the general statement of the main rule is misleading as regards tenancy disputes.

The couple is obligated to pay the tenant's litigation costs in the district court and the Court of Appeal, totaling SEK 422,000.

For termination of an open-ended residential tenancy, the notice period is until the end of a calendar month, at the earliest three months from the notice, and a termination on certain grounds ceases to have effect immediately under Section 6.

Core issue

The tenant's legal position is now definitively favorable: the Supreme Court has refused leave to appeal, so the Court of Appeal's judgment stands and he has the right to remain in the premises with the same rights as a direct tenant. The concrete legal foundation is the district court's and the Court of Appeal's finding that the arrangement was a sham (front-man) scheme, in which the couple rented out the apartment through a rental company and thereby attempted to circumvent the Tenancy Act. The precise legal question in the remaining proceedings is whether the Rent and Tenures Tribunal should grant the couple's notice of termination of the tenancy, or whether the tenant should be treated as a direct tenant with the protection afforded by the Land Code (1970:994).

Legal assessment

• Under the judgment, the tenant has the right to remain in the premises with the same rights as a direct tenant, which, according to his counsel Roland Sjölin, improves his prospects before the Rent and Tenures Tribunal.
• The parallel matter before the Rent and Tenures Tribunal, in which the tenant has been given notice, has not yet been decided.
• The Private Landlord Act (2026:772) also governs early termination, but its Section 3 presupposes breaches of contract such as non-payment or failure to maintain the premises properly, which is not the disputed issue here.
• The record does not cite any case law with case numbers, but the statement of claim relied on a widely discussed sham-tenancy judgment of the Supreme Court, which both the district court and the Court of Appeal followed.

Consequences

The tenant may remain in the apartment on Östermalm; the Court of Appeal's judgment is final and can no longer be challenged.

• The couple must pay SEK 422,000 in litigation costs to the tenant.
• The decisive next step is the Rent and Tenures Tribunal's decision in the termination dispute: if the tenant prevails there, the tenancy is fully secured; if the couple prevails, questions of eviction and notice periods under the Land Code (1970:994) remain.
• For other tenants in sham (front-man) arrangements, the outcome has practical significance, as the courts attached decisive weight to the Supreme Court's sham-tenancy judgment.
• For property owners who rent out through intermediaries, the case demonstrates that such an arrangement may result in the tenant receiving the protection of a direct tenant, as well as the costs of a lost three-year dispute.

11. If no lobbying communication has been conducted during the period, this shall be explicitly stated in the report pursuant to Section 10.

12. The content of the report is governed by Section 9 and shall include the subject matters of the communication as well as specific details regarding the contacts.

Core issue

Pursuant to Section 8, the report shall be submitted three times per year based on specific time periods.

Legal assessment

[Table here - does not count as sentences, but let's make sure it's compact]

Consequences

13. The following information must be disclosed for each subject matter:

• Name of the polit