Differences between holiday homes and permanent homes

We are often asked about the differences between holiday homes and permanent residence and whether our houses can be used year-round. All our houses are winterized and you can live in them year-round. In recent years many have chosen our houses for permanent residence. Despite this, we have chosen to call our houses holiday homes. The reason is that this allows us to design them exactly as our customers want them. Read more about building holiday homes here.

Which house you choose to apply for a building permit for and how you later choose to use it are two separate questions. It is permitted to move permanently to a house where the building permit application indicated a holiday home. And of course it is perfectly fine to use a house as a holiday home that was called a permanent house in the building permit.

There are differences in Boverket's requirements for houses applied for as permanent houses and as holiday homes. The most important are the following:

• Holiday homes are not covered by Boverket's energy requirements, which gives greater freedom to have large glazed areas and to choose the heating method you prefer.

• Holiday homes have fewer rules regarding interior design. Without accessibility requirements and specific rules about how different functions should look, holiday homes can have smaller kitchens and bathrooms, more and smaller bedrooms, as well as larger living rooms in a small house than would be approved for a permanent home.

• If you are interested in using a house from Sommarnöjen as a permanent residence, you can apply for it as a holiday home and later move in permanently. Alternatively, we can help you make the adaptations required for the house to meet the building permit requirements for a permanent house.

• A zoning plan cannot prevent people from moving in permanently to their holiday homes. In areas where the municipality wants to encourage permanent residence, however, the plan may state that new houses should be permanent houses or provide more generous building rights for permanent houses than for new holiday homes.

• If our houses are to be applied for as permanent houses, we normally add 50 mm extra insulation in the floor and roof, install a waterborne heating system and produce an energy declaration. We also adjust the floor plan which means that some models get slightly larger bathrooms and bedrooms and wider interior doors.

• However, most people who choose our houses for permanent residence choose to apply for building permits as holiday homes because they prefer the flexibility it offers. Even in the standard version, our houses have better insulation than most permanent houses built in the 20th century. Depending on where in the country your residence will be, we can add insulation and alternative heating systems according to your wishes.