Basement Nearly Four Times Larger Than Permitted

A house in Reykjavík’s Hólahverfi district contains a basement nearly four times larger than the space permitted under approved plans, according to a recent ruling by Iceland’s Environmental and Natural Resources Appeals Committee.

The property was approved as a single-family house with a 130.2-square-meter upper-floor apartment, a 57.5-square-meter basement apartment and a 34-square-meter basement. In reality, it contained seven apartments. The upper floor measured 172.7 square meters, while five basement apartments occupied 223.1 square meters. A further 34-square-meter apartment had been created in the garage.

The basement grew after its foundation space was excavated. The owners said the property had stood in its current form since 1998, but the ruling indicated that the arrangement may have existed from the beginning, for more than 50 years. Reykjavík’s building official rejected the owners’ application to legalize major changes and ordered them to restore the property to the approved plans within 60 days. Otherwise, they would face daily fines of 25,000 Icelandic krónur.

The city said the arrangement violated both the property’s approved plans and the Efra-Breiðholt neighborhood plan, adopted in 2022. That plan allows one additional apartment in a detached, semi-detached or row house, with a maximum size of one-third of the total house. The city also said the permitted floor area was 287 square meters, compared with 429.5 square meters shown in the current plans. The owners appealed, arguing that they had acted in good faith and could not remove tenants, including some Reykjavík social-service clients, within 60 days.