When can you evict a missbehaving tenant?
Hello. I'm sorry that I write to you in English but my Swedish is not very good. My name is A and together with my husband, we own an apartment in Malmö. In July, 2020, we both move to Stockholm and we rented the apartment to one couple. We had informed the building association and we signed the contract with them. Everything was good until a few weeks ago when the association informed us that our tenants have broken the rules and they have to leave the apartment as soon as possible. Here it is the email that we received from them: “Thanks for getting back to us. We cannot under any circumstances accept this kind of behaviour in our buildings and since they are only renting from you, you have to get them to leave the apartment. Like I told you on the phone yesterday, there has been smoking, drinking and according to other members in the building also substance abuse. Either way, smoking is absolutely prohibited and is a serious security problem to all of us." The tenants do not admit any of this and they do not want to leave the apartment. According to the contract we have a two months notice period and we have informed them about this on the 10th of May. The contract is now invalid since they had broken so many rules and not even pay the rent on the due date which is the 28th before the beginning of each month. We don't know how to proceed further and we have called the police but they said that we should contact you first for advice. Thank you.
Lawline svarar
Hi!
I will try to answer in English, however, It isn't my native language, so please pardon any spelling or grammar errors.
First of all, your contract determines what the tenant is allowed to do and not to do. If the contract doesn't state that the tenants are not allowed to smoke inside, it will be hard for you to evict them due to smoking.
Not paying rent can be cause for what is called "Förverkande" (roughly translated to forfeiture, to lose the right to something). The rent has to be at least a week late (12 kap. 42 § Jordabalken). In that case, you have to send them a letter informing them that they will be evicted due to late payments. But if they pay the late rent within 3 weeks of getting the letter you can't evict them (12 kap. 44 § Jordabalken).
Regarding the disturbances there is a possibility to evict someone due to "särskilt allvarliga störningar i boendet", however in most cases when the rule has been used it has been due to death threats and/or assault towards neighbors (12 kap. 44 § Jordabalken och 12 kap. 25 § jordabalken). Therefore I doubt that smoking will be enough for that evicting them.
My recommendation
I think you should contact a lawyer that can have a look at your paperwork. I also recommend that in case they have not yet paid the rent that was due to 28 of May tat you send them a letter informing them about the possibility of "förverkande". I would also recommend that you do send them a letter informing them of the rules in the house that prohibits smoking inside.
First of all, you need the legal right to evict them (described above) or if something in the contract gives you the right to evict them. Secondly, in case they refuse to move, kronofogdemyndigheten can help you remove them from the property (but you need legal grounds to do so).
I hope this was helpful and wish you good luck!
Kind regards,
