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Swedish island paradise for sale

Fancy your very own Swedish island? Then the island of Hanö off the Blekinge coast in south-east Sweden may be what you are looking for.

Published: 9 May 2008 15:40 CEST

Swedish island paradise for sale

The idyllic island is up for sale and includes a dreamy 6 kilometre long beach as well as a 19th Century lighthouse.

Estate agents Svensk Fastighetsförmedling are in charge of selling the 193 hectare island which includes several properties. After putting in an ad in the local Blekinge Läns Tidningen newspaper, media interest has exploded. The unique property is being sold by a group of related families who own it today.

Around 50 people live on the island year round but the island is a popular destination for around 30,000 visitors each year, with a ferry shuttle operating several times a day.

Hanö possesses a fishing harbour as well as an English cemetery. And whoever buys the island will also own hunting rights to the hundreds of deer that populate it. The island is protected under Natura 2000, an EU ecological network, so at present the only planning permission allowed is in the fishing village itself. However, this could change in future if the new owners sort out the sewage system.

Estate agent Sven-Robert Kroon of Svensk Fastighetsförmedling in Kristianstad is responsible for the sale. Kroon revealed to The Local that Svensk Fastighetsförmedling are pulling out all the stops on marketing and advertising.

“We will be running an ad on TV4. Yes, siree.”

The estate agent did not want to set an exact asking price to The Local.

“We couldn’t comment on an asking price. It all depends on the bidding. Bids have to be in by 20th June”.

See also: Photo Gallery

How to buy your own Swedish island

How can I find an island for sale?

Perhaps surprisingly, you can find islands for sale in the same places you find other properties in Sweden, for example on property site Hemnet, or directly through an estate agent.

As you may expect, people who own their own islands often want to hang onto them, so they don’t come up for sale very often.

If you’re still interested in finding your dream island, then try searching egen ö till salu (own island for sale), and be prepared that you’ll probably have to wait a while before one comes up in your ideal area.

You might also get lucky and be able to find a property which just happens to include a small island with it (for example, a property by a lake or by the sea), but there’s no guarantee that the island would be big enough to actually do anything with – and if it is, the price of the property would no doubt reflect this.

Can I build on it?

Islands usually fall into two categories: those where there is already some sort of house or building (like a lighthouse, for example), and those which are completely untouched.

Bear in mind that the rules on building on islands are pretty strict. Firstly, you’ll need to apply for planning permission (yes, even if you own the whole island), which can be difficult.

Essentially, all Swedish coastlines are protected under strandskyddet (literally: “beach protection”), which means that they must be accessible to the public and cannot be built on or fenced off for private use. The exact area which must be protected varies, but as a general rule you’ll have to keep the shoreline accessible 100 metres inland – going up to 300 metres in some cases.

Under allemansrätten, the right to roam, members of the public must be able to access the coastline, so even if you have your own island which you build your own jetty on, you can’t stop people from turning up and mooring at your jetty to lounge on the rocks.

The only exception to this is if they’re so close to your home they disturb your hemfrid, literally “home peace”, for example if they’d be able to see into your property or would feasibly intrude on your private life.

The downside to this hemfrid rule is that it can sometimes get in the way of planning permission – if a rebuild or extension to your home would extend your hemfrid so much that it would encroach on the public right to access the coastline (even if it’s something as simple as putting in larger windows or building a small veranda), then your application could be rejected.

So essentially, you might need to forget about your dreams of a supervillain-style lair on your own private island.

How much does it cost?

Island prices vary wildly, depending on things like the size of your island, how close it is to a major city, and whether it has buildings or pre-approved planning permission.

Expect to pay a couple million kronor for a larger island (like this one) close to Stockholm or Gothenburg (yes, even if you can’t build anything on it).

Lilla Kattskäret, an island in Norrtälje around an hour from Stockholm with a handful of small buildings and two separate jetties, sold in August for just under 10 million kronor.

If you’re right in the middle of the city centre, you might see islands listed with no price at all, like this island complete with summer house, guest house and another, smaller island. A stone’s throw from Drottningholm Palace – the home of the Swedish King and Queen – this might be a case of “if you have to ask how much it costs, you probably can’t afford it”.

And don’t forget – you’ll need your own boat to access it, too.

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