Inflation, higher interest rates and increased operating costs mean that many of the country's 28,000 condominium associations will have to raise their fees next year, Dagens Nyheter reports.

Particularly vulnerable are newly formed associations which often have high debts, as well as associations which today have too low a fee level and which lack a buffer to cope with the economy.

- Some have a buffer in the fee and can manage without raising the fee.

But a little over half of our customers will need to adjust it.

Most have not made very many changes to the fee in 5–10 years, says Markus Pålsson, business area manager at Sweden's Housing Rights Center, SBC, to DN.  

A survey conducted by the platform Allabrf.se shows that the country's condominium associations have flagged for an increase in the monthly fee by an average of 8.2 percent in 2023. But for some, it could be up to a 45 percent increase, writes DN.

In many associations, there is a shift in the interest cost for loans that are tied and where the tie-in period has not yet expired, and there may be further increases in the future, according to Allabrf.se.

Thousands of associations raise

At Riksbyggen, approximately 1,500 associations have so far announced fee increases, most will raise between 5 and 10 percent, Riksbyggen informs SVT Nyheter.

Within the HSB organization, which has around 4,000 housing associations in the country, so far around 300 associations have flagged that they will raise the fee, HSB announces.

Last year, the same figure was around 100. HSB has not yet compiled how big the increase will be on average.

"Trying to gain height for the future"

Mikael Gröning, board member of an HSB association on Kungsholmen in Stockholm, says that for the first time in several years the association has to raise the fee to cover the loans.

There will be 12 percent more in monthly fees next year for the members of the association, which was formed in the late 1950s. 

- We have tried to take stock of what the future looks like and I am not worried about the association's finances, but I would be if I were in a newly formed association with large loans that risk exceeding the property's value, he tells SVT Nyheter.

In the clip above, hear Ulrika Blomqvist, CEO of Bostadsrätterna, answer three questions about the fee increases