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Of: TT
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Photo: ADAM IHSE
The National Board of Housing, Building and Urbanism considers it reprehensible that municipalities pay maintenance aid to second-hand black flats, since it fosters a criminal market and undermines confidence in the entire rental housing market. Stock Photography.
The National Board of Housing, Construction and Planning believes that it is a very big problem that municipalities pay support for the maintenance of second-hand black apartments.
– We know that it fosters a criminal market and undermines confidence in the entire rental housing market, says Micael Nilsson, an expert with the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning.
Since 2015, the National Housing, Building and Planning Board has known that municipalities pay maintenance aid to people who do not have a valid contract. Payments are made without the municipalities verifying with the owner if subletting is allowed.
– The opinion of the National Board of Housing, Construction and Planning is that it is devastating. It undermines confidence in the entire rental housing market. If people know they can get past the queue, why should they stop and wait? It is not reasonable that local authorities, such as social administrations, do not verify if the owner has given permission to sublet the apartment, says Micael Nilsson, expert and expert on social housing issues at the National Board of Housing, Construction and Planning.
Fight against welfare crimes
As a result, the housing market stops working.
– We do not want apartments to be locked into a black market system. We want a dynamic rental market, where people who no longer need their apartment leave it. If you lock the apartments, you destroy the point with a rental market: which is a flexible housing solution where it’s quick to both find and leave a house, says Micael Nilsson.
However, the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning does not know how big the problem is, since the municipalities themselves do not know if the maintenance support goes to households that pay black subleases.
Micael Nilsson believes that more municipalities should do the same as Södertälje municipality, where administrators require that the aid applicant can demonstrate that the secondary contract applies to a “white” contract. If the person cannot show it or gives the social secretary permission to verify the matter with the owner, it will be rejected.
– Södertälje is truly a role model when it comes to combating welfare crimes. This applies to everything from cheating on assistance benefits to using the assistance clauses of the Social Services Act to make money from social services that turn a blind eye to illegal subletting, says Micael Nilsson.
But when Sveriges Allmännytta invited the National Board for Housing, Construction and Planning, the housing company, the National Board of Health and Welfare and the municipality of Södertälje a few years ago to a round table on how to stop the problems.
Unclear legal situation
– Then it became very clear that these people from the National Board of Health and Welfare pointed out that the Social Services Law is an individual law and that means that the individual has some protection when seeking help. So you can’t keep asking questions like, has this landlord given her permission to sublet the apartment? They believed that Södertälje violated the legislator’s intentions with the Social Services Law, says Micael Nilsson.
The fact that the legal situation is unclear has also arisen earlier when the Tenant Association member magazine Hem & Hyra tried to map out how municipalities handle subletting.
Petra Bergendahl, an attorney with the National Board of Health and Welfare, works with the general guidelines and manual on financial assistance.
– We are updating and making changes to both the general guidelines and the manual. We are doing it right now. I can’t say exactly what we will write, but we are aware that it is an illegal sublet issue that we want to raise, he says.
The Swedish Municipalities and Regions (SKR) do not want to comment on the matter, except that the legal situation is not clear about the opportunities / obligations of the social services to investigate this.
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