SBAB attacked over commission hand-outs to estate agencies
State-owned mortgage lender SBAB is reportedly using a loophole in the law to encourage estate agencies to recommend their services to new house-owners.
According to an article in newspaper Dagens Nyheter, SBAB is giving commission to estate agencies to act as an intermediary with customers and help them negotiate a SBAB mortgage.
The law forbids individual estate agents to receive financial gain for such actions or recommending related services required when buying a property because it could damage customer confidence.
But the same rules do not apply to firms.
Customers are not informed of the joint cooperation, despite the fact it can be interpreted as a way of dodging the law.
Yet, because SBAB hand out commission payments to companies the law is not being broken.
The situation does not fall under the remit of the Swedish Board of Supervision of Estate Agents (Fastighetsmäklarnämnden) because they only review the conduct of estate agents on an individual basis.
But the board's chief Anna-Lena Järvstrand told DN that she intends to further investigate the collaboration.
Eva Cederbalk, CEO of SBAB, fails to see a problem with the way her company is working with estate agencies.
"We don't consider that we are evading the law," she told DN.
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According to an article in newspaper Dagens Nyheter, SBAB is giving commission to estate agencies to act as an intermediary with customers and help them negotiate a SBAB mortgage.
The law forbids individual estate agents to receive financial gain for such actions or recommending related services required when buying a property because it could damage customer confidence.
But the same rules do not apply to firms.
Customers are not informed of the joint cooperation, despite the fact it can be interpreted as a way of dodging the law.
Yet, because SBAB hand out commission payments to companies the law is not being broken.
The situation does not fall under the remit of the Swedish Board of Supervision of Estate Agents (Fastighetsmäklarnämnden) because they only review the conduct of estate agents on an individual basis.
But the board's chief Anna-Lena Järvstrand told DN that she intends to further investigate the collaboration.
Eva Cederbalk, CEO of SBAB, fails to see a problem with the way her company is working with estate agencies.
"We don't consider that we are evading the law," she told DN.
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