Holiday home as a year-round home: the main rule and when you may live there

As a starting point, a holiday home in a holiday home area may not be used as a year-round home. That is the main rule, and it is set out in chapter 8, section 40(1) of the Danish Planning Act (planloven). To do so, you need a special right or a permit.

If you want to use your holiday home as a year-round home, the starting point is that you need either an exemption (dispensation) from the municipality or the special pensioner’s right. Without one of the two, the house may only be used from 1 March to 1 November, plus weekends and shorter holidays during the winter months.

From 1 November to the end of February, only weekends and short holiday stays are allowed. In other words, you may not live in the house permanently through the winter months, and this also applies if you stay there so often that it effectively amounts to living there.

Something many people overlook is the registered address (folkeregisteradresse). Even when you keep well within the seasonal rules and use the house as you are allowed to, your registered address must still be somewhere else where year-round living is legal. So the holiday home cannot be your registered residence just because your stay is legal.

The pensioner rule in section 41 of the Planning Act: the conditions point by point

Section 41 of the Planning Act gives pensioners a personal right to use their own holiday home as a year-round home without applying to the municipality for an exemption. This is the so-called pensioner rule.

The conditions are as follows:

• You must have owned the house for at least one year. Before the revision of the Planning Act in 2017, the requirement was eight years of ownership, so the rules have been relaxed considerably.

• Your pension status must fall within the definition in section 41(2) of the Planning Act. Among others, it covers people entitled to the state pension (folkepension), people on disability pension (førtidspension), recipients of voluntary early retirement pay (efterløn), flexible retirement benefit (fleksydelse), senior pension or early pension (tidlig pension), and people aged 60 and over who receive a pension.

• The right also covers your spouse, cohabiting partner and close relatives, who may live in the house with you all year round. After the pensioner’s death, a person who lived with them may, in certain circumstances, continue to live there all year round.

The crucial point about the pensioner rule is that the right is personal. It follows you and your period of ownership, not the house, and it does not change the zoning status of the holiday home area. The right lapses on a sale, a transfer by gift or any other transfer, and a buyer does not take it over. This also applies to sales within the family, unless the pensioner keeps a share of the ownership, for which municipal practice may require at least 10 per cent. If you want to know whether you yourself meet the conditions for living in a holiday home all year round, it is the municipality that can answer that.

How to register year-round living: notification and registered address

1. Find out which legal basis applies to you

If you are a pensioner under section 41 of the Planning Act, you need neither an exemption nor a building permit to start using your holiday home as a year-round home. The right arises directly under the law once the ownership and pension conditions are met. If, on the other hand, you do not meet the statutory requirements, you can apply for an exemption under section 40(2) of the Planning Act. The application is sent to the municipality and must include your name, the address of your current permanent residence, the address of the holiday home and a specific reason for the application. Most municipalities have an online self-service solution, where you apply under “dispensation til helårsbeboelse i sommerhus” (exemption for year-round living in a holiday home) and fill in fields about the property, ownership and your reasons. You can also send the application to the municipality via Digital Post. It is the municipality that makes the decision, so it is also the municipality you should ask if you are unsure which basis applies in your situation.

1. Only register your address once the legal basis is in place

A registered address in a holiday home may only be registered once the right or the exemption is in place. Registering in the population register (folkeregisteret) does not in itself make year-round living legal, and if you register too early, you risk daily fines for moving in unlawfully as well as an order to put the matter right. So hold off on your CPR registration until all legal requirements are met and any exemption has taken effect. The move itself must be reported to the municipality no later than 5 days after you have moved, under section 12 of the CPR Act. If you have the right to live there all year round as a pensioner, you are welcome to have your registered address in the house, provided the house is in proper condition, but remember that an address in the population register does not in itself make the winter months more habitable, nor does it change the running costs.

1. Make sure it is recorded in BBR

Once year-round living is legal, this must be reflected in BBR (the Danish building register). Field 379 states whether an exemption for legal year-round living has been granted, or whether the home kept its year-round status when the area was designated as a holiday home area under section 40(1) of the Planning Act. With permanent residence and CPR registration, the holiday home is registered as a detached single-family house with use code 120 in fields 203 and 307. If field 379 has been reported correctly, the right to or exemption for year-round living will appear on the BBR owner’s statement (BBR-ejermeddelelse). Check that the information is correct, because this is the registration that authorities and others read when they assess the status of the house.

Other routes to year-round living: exemption and historic right

The pensioner rule is far from the only way to live in your holiday home all year round. There are two other options, and what they have in common is that it is ultimately the municipality that assesses your situation and makes the decision.

• You can apply for an exemption for year-round living in a holiday home under section 40(2) of the Planning Act. In special cases, the municipality can grant an exemption for year-round living, but it is personal, it is granted by the municipal council, and it lapses on a change of ownership or when the home is no longer used as a year-round home. The law does not define exactly what a special case is. The municipality decides on the basis of a specific and objective assessment.

• As a rule, an exemption is only granted to owners or leaseholders of grocery shops and other businesses when it is necessary for running the business, or to people with serious illness and disability who can only have a reasonable life in the holiday home. Financial circumstances are not normally enough to obtain an exemption for year-round living in a holiday home, and health reasons other than serious illness and disability will not in themselves lead to one either.

• If the home has kept its year-round status from before the area was designated as a holiday home area, year-round living remains legal without a new permit. This follows from section 40(1) of the Planning Act and must be shown in BBR field 379.

The flexible housing scheme (fleksboligordningen), on the other hand, is not a route to living in a holiday home all year round. It works the other way: the municipality can give permission for a year-round home to be used as a holiday home and later used as a year-round home again without a new permit (section 41 a of the Planning Act).

It is the municipality where the holiday home is located that decides whether one of these routes is open to you and how the rules are administered locally. Some municipalities follow a restrictive practice to preserve the holiday home areas as they are designated under the Planning Act.

Consequences of illegal year-round living, and what changes when you live there legally

If you use your holiday home as a year-round home without a legal right or an exemption, the municipality is obliged to intervene. It must issue an order for you to move out of the holiday home within 14 days. The order is not a recommendation.

If you do not comply with the order, the municipality must report the case to the police and impose daily coercive fines on you until you move. The fines must be collected, if necessary by seizing assets, and this must happen at least every 4 weeks. If you are registered in the population register as living in the holiday home without being legally allowed to live there all year round, the municipality must also order you every year, as of 1 November, to move out within 14 days. If you are only registered between 1 November and 1 February, the order must come no later than 14 days after the registration.

Thousands of Danes live illegally in holiday homes all year round, and if their registered address is somewhere else, in a legal year-round home, nothing happens in many municipalities. It is tacitly accepted, partly because it is hard to prove. The fact that the municipality does not react today gives you no legal protection against an order or a penalty later. So you cannot count on it being fine just because your neighbour has done the same for years.

What you need to sort out once year-round living is legal

Once the legal basis is in place, a number of practical matters change.

• The house must be insured as a year-round home. Ordinary holiday home insurance does not cover year-round living and could leave you without cover when you need it. Make sure you have the insurance changed so that it matches the way the house is actually used.

• You need to check property value tax and any changes to land tax with Skattestyrelsen (the Danish Tax Agency) yourself. The rates are updated every year, so amounts you have seen before are not necessarily the same today. Skattestyrelsen can tell you the current rates and rules for your property.

• The municipality must provide home help, home nursing and other municipal services if they are needed. This also applies if you only use the holiday home during holiday periods.

• The house must be suitable for year-round living. This concerns things like the level of insulation, sewerage and access road – factors that rarely matter much when the house is only used in summer, but which you notice when you live there all year. For pensioners, the switch to a year-round home does not require a building application, but the municipality can prohibit year-round living under the rules on housing inspection if the house is unfit to live in.

A holiday home that works perfectly well from May to September may need insulation, heating and a passable road all winter if you want to live there permanently.

Checklist for buyers: ask the municipality, not the seller

If you are buying a holiday home with a view to living there all year round, there is one source you can rely on, and that is the municipality. The seller can think what they like, but it is not the seller who makes the decision.

• Have the seller’s information confirmed by the municipality. Always ask the municipality about the property’s status for year-round living, and ask for the answer in writing. A verbal statement from the seller is not binding, and you have no legal basis if it turns out that the house may not be used the way the seller claimed.

• Check the zoning status under the Planning Act and the applicable local plans or easements before you count on year-round living. You can, for example, see registered rights and charges via Tinglysning.dk and the plans in the municipality’s planning register. This is where private easements can turn up that prohibit year-round living and mean that you do not obtain the right, even if the legal conditions are otherwise met. This happens, for example, if a homeowners’ association (grundejerforening) has adopted a ban that is registered on the property.

• Examine the BBR owner’s statement. Field 379 shows whether an exemption for year-round living has been granted, or whether the home kept its year-round status when the area was designated as a holiday home area under section 40(1) of the Planning Act. Fields 203 and 307 must match the actual use. If permission has been granted for year-round living in a holiday home, the use codes in the two fields must be changed to match how the house is actually used.

• Remember that the right under the pensioner rule is personal. It cannot be taken over through a purchase, so as the buyer you must meet the conditions in section 41 of the Planning Act yourself or apply to the municipality for an exemption under section 40(2) of the Planning Act. The seller’s pension status does not pass with the house in the sale, and this also applies to sales within the family.

The municipality where the holiday home is located is the authority on whether a holiday home may be used as a year-round home. The rules of the Planning Act are the same throughout the country, but municipal practice can vary. Do not start the move or register with the CPR until you have that answer in writing. A verbal promise from a seller, a neighbour or a random caseworker has no legal effect on the day the municipality makes a different decision.