I thought it was about time that I shed a bit of light on the actual process of buying a house in Norway.
On the practical side of things, when you buy property in Norway it's a bit like purchasing in other European countries, in that once you've made an offer it's legally binding. So the trick is to make sure you know what you're getting into!
As a bit of background, after our very first house viewing encounter almost 2 years ago now, the person who's farm we visited put us onto a website called finn.no. This site is basically a classified selling website for a collection of papers and agents and you can buy everything from houses and land to cars, holidays and they also list the majority of jobs available. You have to bear in mind that in a country whose population is only 6 million that 1 single website is actually perfect!
On here you can search houses (boligs til salg) and you can search by area, when it was listed etc and list them by price or similar, as well as keeping a favourites list ( minn funn) which means you can track your house.
In Norway all houses are listed as guide prices and usually with set visiting hours / open days. Anyone can visit ( and I was told by one person it can be a bit of a recreational pastime!) . After you have visited you can then bid on the house if you actually like it. After the visit and before you bid, it is your responsibility to make sure you have all the information you need to make a bid, as once this is submitted and accepted then it is a legally binded contract. Usually the sellers agent will provide a building survey, land details and registration/ kommune requirements, so unlike in the uk, you have the full package. I should point out that it goes without saying that you should also have your finances / mortgage offer in place !
As part of the bid you can stipulate your conditions such as obvious ones like price! But also moving in date, things like including bits of contents and in our case because we bought through a private seller, we referenced all of the conversations we had had to date with the seller about the property such as ongoing costs, rights of way, usage etc. and also how long the bid is valid for. ( if you use an agent then usually this stipulated at around 24 hours) we gave our chap 4 days as the seller was staying in his hut ( hytte) with no internet access! ( it's another norwegian pastime, and for another post )
Once you have made your bid it then gets notified to any other interested party and they are then able to make a counter offer and so it goes on until a winning bid is made. Now this might seem unfair, but it is such a better system then in the uk where people make offers, then knock them down over time and then fanny around over seemingly endless tiny technicalities.
So once your offer is accepted then that's it .....you sit and wait to move in!
Now in our case I am using an agent to organise the legal side of things And money transfer etc. so far be it from sitting on my arse, I'm now currently translating building contracts, registration information and other things. Our agent, a really helpful man called Per speaks great English and has helped us throughout but of course the actual legal documents are in norwegian! ( and why wouldn't they be) oh and one final thing, you will need a d number if you own property on Norway which is basically a tax number, but this seems a relatively easy process to apply........(Again for another post)
So I've just got back from the post office having posted the above mentioned signed contracts back to Norway...... I'm sure it wi be fine as I think it's to buy the house we saw : /
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