In the north of Dalarna County is the Älvdalen municipality situated. There is only one newspaper editor (Mittmedia) owned by Bonnier news, covering the entire county via (Dalarnas Tidningar).
They pretend to be different brands by giving the newspapers different names for the different areas. In addition, they give out a newspaper with a different political colour named (DalaDemokraten), in order to get the subsidies from the government.
The year of 2009 the Älvdalen municipality sold a property to the journalist Nils Gustav Schmidt for the facile price of 425 000 SEK (42500 Euro). A 750 m2 building mass and a land plot of 3967m2 in the centre of the ski resort of Idre. In addition, the municipality pay rent of 300 000 SEK (30 000 euro) yearly to the limited company Bergsskolan Fastighet AB Bergsskolan Fastighet AB, owned by the journalist Nils Gustav Schmidt.
By the geographical location of the Älvdalen municipality the journalist is the only one covering the area. It is 250 km to the newspaper editorial office in Falun.
The political party who made up this deal with the journalist have now total control of the truth in the area. All the politicians in all the other parties read the Mora Tidning, to get their information to vote in the municipality board. The employees in the municipality read the Mora Tidning daily where they get the “official truth” of all different matters.
Nils Gustav Schmidt who has the by-line Nisse Schmidt, a virtuous in twist and bias, have now the economic resources to be present at all happenings in the municipality. Sport events, opening ceremonies, inaugurations, and information meetings.
He is the one who conclude in his articles what was told in all different matters. All people in the municipality knows Nisse Schmidt since he has the economical platform to be present in the whole municipality daily.
There was one guy who lived in the municipality who questioned why the municipality sold the property to Nils Gustav Schmidt, without announcement on the market for competition with other buyers.
But first we must explain some attributes in the Swedish Law. The Swedish law gives the authority for land survey the possibility to take a part of a private property and give it to another property against the will of the owner.
This is called servitude. The servitude is then by law valid for ever. The reason is told to be the protection of the third party. The third party is in this meaning the bank that lend money to the ascendant property.
Those kinds of servitude also mentioned as official servitude must not be registered in the land survey property database. The only proof is a document that the owner of the ascendant property has. The document shall be handed over to the next byer. No one knows how many of those servitudes there are, but some figures point to about half a million.
The guy whose name is Patrik who opposed the municipality property transaction to Nisse Schmidt owns a piece of land. The journalist Nisse Schmidt finds out that there is a servitude on the land plot of Patrik. He makes up a story together with the owner of the ascendant property. He hovers around in the area and spreads the story.
Älvdalen is a small municipality with only 70000 inhabitants. Since work is scarce in the area Patrik must commute to Norway to make a living for him and his family. Since Patrik spends his weeks in Norway, he doesn’t notice what is going on. Just the bullying of his Childs in school that starts taking part.
Nisse Schmidt repeatedly writes articles in Mora Tidning Mora Tidning where he enforces the story. Patrik who doesn’t read the local press do get to know about the articles by his friends’ months after they are published.
The owner of the ascendant property is reporting to the district council that the goats belonging to Patrik’s daughter goes in on his property. Patrik puts up a fence to prevent the goats from assaulting his neighbour.
Patrik gets a letter from the court (Mora Tingsrätt) that he is sued for preventing the owner of the ascendant property to utilize his right to the servitude. Patrik contacts a lawyer for advice. The lawyer concludes that the owner of the ascendant property can’t possibly win the case in the court.
Patrik questions the charges against him. Mainly because the charges would give the counterpart total control of the land owned by Patrik and prevent him from keeping any farm animals. The land plot is farmland in a farming area and has always been utilized for keeping farm animals.
Most people in Sweden have a deep belief in the rule of law. The naïve citizen believes that if he can prove that the charges against him is not true, he will win the case. Patrik and his attorney send in a map of the area, pictures where the counterpart has his boat and a bridge on the land where he claims he is rejected to use.
In addition, the articles written by Nisse Schmidt had a photo photo where the boat and canoe of the owner of the ascendant property were pulled up on the land plot owned by Patrik.
The owner of the ascendant property has sent an application to the municipality to build a house on the farmland owned by Patrik. The application was approved and specified on a map. It was obvious for anyone that there were no obstacles where the house was supposed to be built according to the municipality building permit.
What most people probably don’t know is that one of the parts can request to the court that the other parts evidence shall be rejected. The court approved the request, and the evidence of Patrik was rejected.
Patrik lost the case and was ordered to pay the cost for the owner of the ascendant property.
Patrik sent an appeal to the higher court (hovrätten). But when the owner of the ascendant property sent a request that the evidence of Patrik should be rejected, and the higher court approved their request, Patrik pulled back his appeal.
The article, where Nisse gives the impression that Patrik sold the land to the owner of the ascendant property. It is not true since the land of the ascendant property was sold the year Patrik was born.
The close camera angles give the intended effect of someone who is locked in. The fence is preventing the goats from entering the ascendant property. The owner of the ascendant property can just use his gate and go down to the area where the land survey authority defined, that he had the right to build a house and put a jetty into the lake.
There is no doubt that he has a jetty in the lake, which he admits in the article by Nisse Schmidt. He refuses to build a boathouse since he will have the possibility to, in all future, claim Patrik if he does something on his land. Anything the owner of the property does will be right on the spot where the owner of the ascendant property was supposed to build his boathouse.
The area that is subject for the case, about 600 m2, has never been surrounded by any fence.
People from the village utilize the area for bathing and fishing. The only one who seem to be prevented is the owner of the ascendant property.
Nisse Schmidt’s statement in the end of the article that the “sight of the neighbour (Patrik) has scared potential buyers” might not be true. Before the court case was finalized the owner of the ascendant property managed to sell his property for 1450 000 SEK. He made a profit of 900 000 SEK. This compared to the 425 000 Nisse Schmidt paid for the 750 m2 estate on 3967m2 ground in the ski resort of Idre.
In the statement from the court following the sentence where the allocation of the cost for the case. the court find that Patrik shall pay the cost of the claims the owner of the ascendant property was denied with the motivation that “the court can’t make an estimation of how to divide the cost”.
It appears that the court have the main goal to build cost, on order to cause Patrik as much economic harm as possible.
The cost for Patrik has so far been about 400 000 SEK.
Since a land plot without any buildings is not possible to buy an insurance. Patrik must pay his own and the counterpart’s cost according to the Swedish law.
Patrik finds it disgusting when the municipality director Stefan Linde calls him privately and asks if he is now forced to sell the property where he lives to pay the cost for the court case. Stefan Linde made it clear that he was a prospective buyer!
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Det händer att min fru klagar på att jag inte tar min del av hushållsarbetet. Då säger jag att jag är medveten om problemet, och har gjort en lex Martin anmälan. Jag har startat en enmansutredning. Den kommer att vara färdig snart. Vilket år som helst faktiskt!
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