To Work with Households that Are Facing Eviction – an Advice Bureau of Housing Rent and Its Outcome

Abstract

From the filing of an application to evict to the final execution of an eviction is a long and complicated process that can go on for over a year in Sweden. In Sweden it exist few studies and limited knowledge of evictions. The studies are (Stenberg 1984, 1990, Flyghed and Stenberg 1993, Edlund, Olofsson and Östlund 1994, Sahlin 1996, Flyghed 1994, 1995, 2000, 2005, Löfstrand 2001, Nilsson and Flyghed 2004, SOU 2005:88, Holmdahl 2005, Holmdahl, Bergmark and Lundström 2006) and mainly focus on the development of evictions during the last 20 years and which individuals who get evicted and why. In Sweden around 12,000 eviction applications are brought to the social welfare offices while 4-5,000 evictions are executed by the enforcement administration each year (Skatteverket 2005) mostly in the big cities. Eviction is the last result of a breach of contract, representing an excluding sanction. For those individuals who get evicted wait, apart from losing their residence, marginalization as a sentence of eviction goes on the tenant’s record. Approximately 85 percent of evictions are executed for failure to pay rent (Flyghed 2000) and for those individuals the eviction also results in a record of financial default.