Lantmäteriförrättning

A lantmäteriförrättning is the formal case handling that carries out fastighetsbildning (property formation) in Sweden: from application until new boundaries and rights are registered in the fastighetsregistret. It is not a meeting or a single act, but the whole process, led by one case officer from start to finish.

Anyone with a legal interest can apply, most often a landowner, but also a municipality, a bank with a mortgage on the property or a samfällighetsförening (joint property association). The application goes to Lantmäteriet, or to a kommunal lantmäterimyndighet (KLM) in those municipalities that have their own cadastral authority instead of the state one. Chapter 4 of the Swedish property formation act, fastighetsbildningslagen (1970:988), governs the procedure: a forrättningslantmätare (cadastral surveyor) is appointed, affected parties are notified and summoned, and the case is handled at one or more sammanträden where boundaries are set on the ground, values are assessed and any compensation between the parties is calculated. The case ends with a förrättningsbeslut, which becomes binding when the four week appeal period has passed.

If any party disagrees, the appeal goes to the mark- och miljödomstolen, not to an administrative body. The court can uphold, change or set aside the decision, and the case can go on to the Mark- och miljööverdomstolen at Svea hovrätt and, in the final instance, Högsta domstolen, with leave to appeal (prövningstillstånd) required along the way.

The cost is borne by the applicant and invoiced by time spent, not as a fixed fee. A simple case has a base charge of 9,000 kr for one to five fastigheter, with a fixed addition of 12,000 kr from the sixth onwards. On top of that comes an hourly rate, typically 1,200 to 1,900 kr per hour depending on the expertise required. In practice most cases end up at 50,000 to 100,000 kr, and complex cases with many parties become considerably more expensive.

In 40 of Sweden's 290 municipalities it is not Lantmäteriet but a separate kommunal lantmäterimyndighet (KLM) that decides cases within the municipal boundary. The arrangement is set out in fastighetsbildningslagen and gives the municipality the same authority as the state one, including its own forrättningslantmätare and its own archive, while the appeal route to the mark- och miljödomstolen is the same. The arrangement is not static: Lantmäteriet keeps an ongoing overview of which municipalities have their own KLM, and the number has changed over time as municipalities set up or wind down their own cadastral authority. The remaining roughly 250 of the 290 municipalities use the state lantmäterimyndighet as the default.

A förrättning is not concluded until the result is entered in the general part of the fastighetsregistret. It is the registration, not the sammanträde itself, that completes the fastighetsbildning under chapter 1, section 2 of fastighetsbildningslagen. Until then no party has a final right they can rely on against a third party, even if the boundaries have already been staked out on the ground.

The Norwegian parallel is the oppmålingsforretning (cadastral survey) followed by registration in the matrikkel, but the two systems distribute power differently. In Norway the surveying is a municipal task and the setting of boundaries is separate from the appeal handling, which goes to the statsforvalteren. In Sweden it is the other way round: the case is decided by a state (or municipal) lantmäterimyndighet with court level competence built into the case itself, and a dissatisfied party meets an ordinary court, not an administrative appeal.

From Placepoint's glossary: Lantmäteriförrättning

More information: Lantmäteriet: Ansök, följ eller komplettera ett ärende, Lantmäteriet: Vad kommer det att kosta?, Sveriges Domstolar: Överklaga Lantmäteriets beslut

English: Cadastral procedure (the formal case handled by Lantmäteriet to carry out a property formation).