Housing: Renting, Buying & Selling in Helsinki & Finland-wide

For a non-Finnish speaker, any kind of real estate transaction can be a daunting and time-consuming task. This section aims to help you address the difficulties involved in renting, buying or selling property in Finland; it is not aimed at helping you find short-term / holiday accommodation.

If you're looking for a place to live, you'll find that availability of residential property is low, particularly in the Helsinki region. The newspapers, while helpful, are full of terms meaningless to a "new Finn", and the numerous online search engines are also generally only available in Finnish. You can therefore hit the streets and visit real estate agents, where you WILL find multi-lingual staff who can assist you, or you can try to find your way through the property search engines.

If you're a seller, this section will help you understand your rights and obligations, and the procedures involved.

Remember: When you move, Finnish law requires that you register your new address. See Address Notification

General Information on Finnish Housing

Houses and apartments in Finland are generally of high quality, well heated in winter, and have all modern conveniences. Home ownership rates are high; approximately two-thirds of Finland’s housing stock consists of owner-occupied homes. Apartments and houses, particularly in the Helsinki area, may be considered small by western standards.

Apartment Ownership & Shares in Housing Companies
In Finland, when you "buy an apartment" what you are usually actually buying are shares in a housing company (asunto-osakeyhtiö) - more commonly known in English as a housing cooperative. The amount of shares per apartment is proportional to the size of the apartment.

A housing company is a legal entity that owns one or more residential buildings. Owning shares in a housing company, corresponding to "one apartment", is basically considered as much "owning your own home" in Finland as actually owning a single family house. The housing company is owned and managed by the residents. The obligation to ensure proper maintenance of buildings and apartments is shared between the housing company and its shareholders.

Finnish housing companies are generally incorporated as non-profit, limited-liability companies. Because they own and perform maintenance of the doors, walls, pipes, windows and balconies, for example, they also make regulations about what residents can, or cannot do to the doors, walls, pipes, windows and balconies - housing company regulations are therefore wide-ranging, and occasionally considered frustrating. If you renovate your bathroom for example, inspection(s) will be carried out by a housing company nominee to ensure that plumbing, electrical and insulation work meets the housing company's as well as EU standards.

Apartment owners are shareholders who can, and indeed should, participate in the housing company meetings which determine building, renovation and financial plans. Housing companies usually have outstanding loans which they have obtained for the purposes of performing building maintenance. These loans may affect your decision when buying an apartment.

No board approval is needed to buy shares (i.e. an apartment), which is usually done on the open property market through a real estate agent.

Setting Up Your New Home

• Electricity can usually be connected by simply calling an electricity company and providing them with your name and address. Helsingin Energia's site provides comprehensive information in English, Swedish and Finnish.
• If you need a landline, inform the telephone company of your new address and a landline connection will be established
• If you have a television, or any device capable of receiving TV signals, you will need a TV licence
• Many apartments are already "wired" for broadband, and access may be included in your rent. Check the situation before you make other arrangements with an Internet Service Provider
• It is a common requirement of lessors that tenants purchase insurance on rented accommodation. Contents insurance is reasonably priced and can be obtained from many insurance companies.
• By Finnish law each residence must have a functioning fire alarm. Home insurance does not cover damage from a fire if the fire alarm was out of order prior to and during the fire, so keep the batteries fresh!
• Water is usually included in tenancy agreements, and sometimes in maintenance agreements. Check your agreement to see whether bills are included, or whether they are payable separately each month
• Most apartment buildings do not allow residents the summer luxury of cooking on the balcony or terrace. Some, however, allow electric barbecues - check the building regulations

Conditions Of Residence
Become familiar with the housing company regulations for your building; these will include such things as permissible hours for power tools, whether you can have a barbecue on your balcony etcetera.

• Sauna: The landlord or building management can book you a regular time to use the sauna in the building. You can also join the communal sauna! Usually a ladies' sauna and a men's sauna once a week
• Laundry rooms: To use the laundry room in the building you must book a time; the reservation books are usually in the laundry itself, just sign yourself up
• Parking: You can usually sign an agreement with the landlord to have a parking spot, usually with power, allocated to you. It will usually entail an additional charge.
• Hazardous waste: Poisonous material, electrical waste and scrap electronics cannot be deposited in the waste containers of the property. For the location of the nearest hazardous waste collection site please visit ongelmajate.fi. *Enter your Location (Kunta) or Postcode (Postinumero) and click HAE for your closest hazardous material collection site.
• Satellite dish: You will need to find out whether the housing company regulations permit installation of a satellite dish.

See also: Infopankki (Information Bank) - more information