In Gothenburg, the treasurer of the condominium association Visan, Niklas Bellman, shows us around the courtyard they share with the neighboring association Sången. For some time now, work has been going on to merge the two associations into one large one.
– For us, it is very logical as we belong to a property. But it is also a cost saving. We will jointly get much higher loans, then we will have a stronger negotiating position vis-à-vis the banks to negotiate down interest rates.
The number has increased
Between 2010 and 2020, an average of 13 mergers were completed per year. But in the last three years, according to the Swedish Companies Registration Office, that number has increased to 19. And real estate lawyer Christina Fregne believes that this will become more common in the future as well.
– If you merge two condominium associations, you become stronger vis-à-vis the banks, you may get better conditions when you have to carry out maintenance on your properties and it may also be that it becomes easier to find people who want to sit on the board simply.
Neither the lawyer nor the treasurer in Gothenburg sees any disadvantages, it would possibly be that it might be a little more difficult to know all the neighbors in a larger association, but hopefully this can be compensated by the money that the association will save, believes Niklas Bellman.
– We are halving many of our costs so we believe we will be able to save SEK 2-300,000 per year.
And Niclas Bellman hopes that the neighbors will benefit from this saving.
– We haven’t actually raised the fee since the interest rate situation changed, so the goal is first and foremost that we shouldn’t have to raise it at all. But in the long run it would be great if we could lower the fees.