Folketingets Ombudsmand has opened an investigation into property tax errors affecting around 20,000 homeowners, after a man was charged land tax for months on a holiday home he had already sold.
Ombudsman Jacob Christian Gaardhøje has written to the Ministry of Taxation asking for answers about the errors in property taxation, DR reported on October 1. He is requesting accounts from both the Danish Tax Agency, Skattestyrelsen, and the Property Assessment Agency, Vurderingsstyrelsen. The ministry has eight weeks to respond.
The investigation was triggered by the case of Kim Niemann, which DR reported earlier this year. He handed over the keys to the new owners of his summer house on October 1 last year. When his preliminary tax assessment for 2026 arrived in November, it still listed grundskyld, or land tax, for the property.
Niemann contacted the tax authorities immediately, but by June this year the problem was still unresolved. He was being charged 633 kroner a month in land tax on a house he no longer owned. As he told DR in June, the authorities could see in their own system that he was no longer the owner.
Sent in circles between three agencies
DR reviewed documentation of Niemann’s correspondence with both Skattestyrelsen and Vurderingsstyrelsen. He also complained to the Tax Appeals Agency, Skatteankestyrelsen, which referred him back to Vurderingsstyrelsen. When he followed up in April, he was referred back to Skattestyrelsen again.
The ombudsman has noted this pattern and is asking for any internal instructions on how the agencies handle citizens whose cases involve more than one body within the tax administration. He also wants to know whether authorities collected grundskyld while already knowing the person charged was not the rightful owner, and on what legal basis. In addition, he is asking whether the ministry expects more citizens to end up in similar situations.
About 20,000 owners and an earlier case from 2024
Vurderingsstyrelsen’s director, Anne-Sofie Jensen, told DR in a written reply over the summer that Niemann was one of about 20,000 homeowners with an error in their property taxation. She said the group was affected by several different types of error, and that the agency had communicated directly with those it was able to identify on the 2025 annual tax statement. The ombudsman now wants the ministry to specify which errors are involved and how many people each one affects.
In June, Jensen said a solution was expected to be ready during the following week, and that affected owners would automatically receive a new preliminary assessment and annual statement over the summer. According to that account, affected owners get their money back plus accrued interest. Niemann’s own payments stopped only after DR took up his case and Vurderingsstyrelsen corrected it manually.
This is not the first case of its kind. In 2024, DR revealed through a previously confidential memo that the IT company KMD had estimated that around 17,000 former sellers were hit by a defect, leaving them without notice that they were still paying grundskyld.
What the property tax errors mean for international homeowners
Grundskyld is the Danish land tax paid by property owners, and it now appears on the same tax documents as income tax. That means it shows up on the forskudsopgørelse, the preliminary income assessment, and on the årsopgørelse, the annual tax statement. Anyone buying or selling a home in Denmark will see the tax reflected in those documents rather than in a separate municipal bill.
For internationals who have sold property in Denmark, the practical consequence described by DR is that the charge can keep running after the sale. Vurderingsstyrelsen has said affected owners should receive corrected assessments automatically and be repaid with interest, but Niemann’s case took nine months and required manual intervention. What is not yet known is how the roughly 20,000 cases break down, and that is exactly what the ombudsman has asked the Ministry of Taxation to explain within eight weeks.
