A while back Chris and I decided that our current apartment, though very nice and in a great location, is just feeling a bit too small these days, especially since the arrival of Mojo and Sushi. I also had concerns that in such a small space the cats wouldn’t get enough exercise or stimulation. So we decided to casually keep our eye on the real estate market, but we were only going to actually go to viewings of places that were really special.

We went to one somewhere between where we live now and the centre of town, but it was really too small for the price being asked, and despite the fact that it was very funky and had a great view over the river, it just wasn’t practical.

The only other place we looked at, some six weeks later, we immediately fell in love with.  We even decided not to bother waiting for the second place we’d found which wasn’t open for viewing for several more days. We bid, we won and we were ecstatic.

It was perfect for us. Two bedrooms meant finally having somewhere for guests to sleep, two fireplaces, two bathrooms, and best of all, two storeys joined by a charming spiral staircase. Deep window ledges perfect for cats to sun themselves in, a beautiful kitchen with induction stove and huge island bench… this place had everything we wanted. And it was ours!

For three happy, exciting weeks after we made the winning bid, we made so many plans about how we were going to buy all new furniture, and where we were going to put it. We planned out how we would move in right after our relaxing two week vacation in a Turkish beach resort… and then just less than a week before we were due to meet the owners and sign the papers, we got the call that all Norwegian home buyers dread;

I’m so sorry, but someone in the building has invoked forkjøpsrett and will be taking over your bid and buying the apartment.

Let me explain a little of my understanding of the forkjøpsrett rule. In some cases, the organisations whose members have a right to take over other people’s bids are very large, with thousands of members, and these members have precedent over one another according to how long they’ve had membership in the organisation. In our case, the organisation was made up of the 90 owners of apartments in the borettslag (cooperative).

Yes, we knew there were 20 days that we had to wait after we made our successful bid until we could officially call the apartment ours. And yes, although the agent assured us  that it was extremely unlikely to happen, especially in the current economic climate, we shouldn’t have let ourselves get excited until we had signed on the dotted line. But nevertheless it was a crushing blow, and honestly, even if it hadn’t happened I would still think this was a stinky law.

The original bidder has no right of reply, cannot offer more money to secure the apartment and cannot do anything except bend over.

In the larger organisations, the best-known in Oslo being OBOS  (Oslo Bolig- og Sparelag), there have even been stories of children being given membership as a christening gift so that by the time they want to buy a home they will have years of membership behind them to give them higher precedence. So for a non-member to buy an OBOS home can be almost impossible, especially back when the housing market was booming. Some people join just for one month in order to at least give them the edge over non-members.

In our case, however, the only way to be a member was to already own an apartment in the building. So whoever took our bid is either an investor or someone wanting to upgrade to a better apartment at the very nice price we secured for them. Either way, I think it stinks.

People have argued with me about this when I have said I think the property should only be advertised publicly after the members have decided they’re not interested. The argument is that the market would then be too small and would not benefit the seller by creating good competition. Okay, fair enough, but how does it benefit the owner if the original winning bidder can’t come back with a counter-offer? Surely this would mean even better competition and a better result for the owner.

And on a more personal note, who is this asshole who waited until there were only a few days left of the waiting period before swooping in and stealing our apartment? I know where you (are going to) live, jerk face!

So for us, it’s back to the drawing board and our tiny apartment for the foreseeable future. The market will most likely be slow in the coming weeks as Oslo pretty much shuts down for summer vacation.

To cheer ourselves up we booked a weekend trip to London at the end of July to catch up with friends and do some retail therapy. We also still have our Turkey trip to look forward to, and we’ll just have to try hard not to think about the fact that we were supposed to be moving into our new apartment the day we got home. *mutter*

I also saw the video and website from the Google founders and Richard Branson claiming that they had a 100 year plan to settle Mars. Have a look at this: http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html

This came as a bit of a shock to me; I’d always thought it was fierce national pride that made Weegies give their children such traditional names… or maybe unoriginality… but I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and call it national pride.

Anyway… I was so fascinated by the idea of this law that I decided to do some research.

I searched on various websites and discovered that the law was changed in 2003 to become slightly more liberal, and yet had trouble finding any official source that actually said a baby has to be named from a central register. I did find out though, that you have to give your baby a name within the first six months of its life or it will automatically get its mother’s surname as a first name.

It is also illegal to have your first name and surname as the same name, so Chris’s Sim character “Bob Bobson” would probably be out.

I found a couple of articles in English about this:

• Baby Naming Laws: Grin and “Bjorn” It?
• Norway and parents tussle on baby’s name

But I knew I wouldn’t get any real information until I did some reading in Norwegian. Luckily my Norwegian is good enough that I can usually muddle through and find what I’m looking for.

Eventually I found the Navneloven website which summarises the law and the recent changes (see my translation below each paragraph – apologies if the translation sucks, leave a comment if there are corrections needed):

Ny norsk navnelov ble gjeldende fra 2003, og erstattet den gamle navneloven fra 1964. I den nye navneloven ble det friere å velge mer spesielle og uvanlige navn enn det var tidligere.

A new Norwegian naming law became valid from 2003, and replaced the old law from 1964. The new naming law allows more freedom to choose special and unusual names than there had been previously.

En av de viktigste forskjellene fra den gamle navneloven, er at et fornavn nå kan benyttes hvis det ikke vil “bli til vesentlig ulempe for vedkommende eller andre sterke grunner tilsier det”. Tidligere måtte navnet ikke bli til “ulempe”, og det er klart at ved å legge til ordet “vesentlig” i den nye navneloven, står man nå mye friere til å velge fornavn.

One of the most important differences from the old naming law is that a first name can be given as long as it will not cause significant disadvantage to the person concerned or other strong reasons within the realms of common sense. Previously, the name could not cause “disadvantage” but the addition of the word “significant” means that Norwegians now have more freedom in choosing a name.

En begrensning for valg av fornavn, er likevel at hvis navnet er registrert som etternavn eller mellomnavn, kan det ikke benyttes som fornavn hvis det ikke allerede har opphav/tradisjon som fornavn i Norge, i utlandet, eller i andre kulturer hvor det ikke skilles mellom fornavn og etternavn.

A restriction in choosing a first name is that if the name is registered as a surname or middle name, it cannot be given to a child unless that name is already a traditional Norwegian first name, or a name in another country or culture where there is no separation of middle and surnames.

Man er pliktig til å gi myndighetene beskjed om valg av navn for barnet sitt senest 6 måneder etter at det er født.

It is your duty to give the authorities notification of your choice of name for your child, at the latest, six months after the birth.

Endring av fornavn kan i hovedsak ikke gjøres mer enn en gang hvert tiende år, hvis det ikke er særlige grunner for det.

Changing of first names can essentially not be done more than once every ten years unless there is a special reason for it.

Navneloven (lov om personnavn) kan leses i sin helhet her.

The naming law can be read in its entirety here.

So there you have it folks. Before 2003 there were a lot of restrictions on naming your baby (or renaming yourself for that matter) but they seem to have eased up since the last change in law. The funny thing is, some Norwegians are completely ignorant that the law even exists (those without children, no doubt) and others that are still convinced that the old strictures are still in place. In any case, you can still have your chosen name rejected by the government if they decide that it will cause significant disadvantage to the namee.