Østre Landsret clears Vurderingsstyrelsen of damages liability

Østre Landsret has cleared Vurderingsstyrelsen of damages liability to buyers of project-sale homes whose final land values came in far above the estimates printed in the sale particulars. In a judgment of 21 October 2026Domsdatabasen deciding five first-instance cases together (BS-12341/2022-OLR), the court held the agency had committed no errors capable of triggering liabilityDomsdatabasen when SKAT, as it then was, gave estate agents indicative opinions on expected land values in 2013 and 2015Domsdatabasen.

The opinions sat inside a 2006 arrangement under which SKAT helped members of Dansk Ejendomsmæglerforening estimate the future tax base for homes sold off plan in Område 1, an area that had never previously been valued. SKAT told the agents it could not value project-sale properties as though the project were completed, that each opinion was vejledende and not bindingDomsdatabasen, and that it served only to help the agents form their own estimate of the future ejendomsværdiskat and ejendomsskatDomsdatabasen. The final grundværdi assessments later exceeded the agents' estimates built on those opinions by roughly 258 to 464 per cent.Domsdatabasen

The buyers argued the sheer size of that gap was in itself liability-triggering, that the opinions otherwise rested on no objective basis, and that the case handling had been careless. Vurderingsstyrelsen answered that the buyers were barred from directing any claim at it, because the opinions were addressed to the agents rather than to them and they had waived any property-tax claim against the seller and the agent, and that SKAT's work had in any event been objective and free of liability-triggering mistakes.

The court rejected the standing objection in partDomsdatabasen: buyers are not cut off from claiming directly against the tax authorities to the extent they can prove SKAT made clear errors of a certain gravity when giving the indicative opinionsDomsdatabasen. But on the question of fault it sided with the agency throughoutDomsdatabasen. A deviation of 258 to 464 per cent raises no presumption that the opinions were defectiveDomsdatabasen and does not lift the buyers' burden of proofDomsdatabasen. It must have been clear to the agents that the opinions carried significant uncertaintyDomsdatabasen, and the opinions do not limit the agents' own responsibility for the estimated property-tax figures they put in the sale particularsDomsdatabasen. The calculation methods SKAT used were usual and suitable for fixing the land value of residential propertyDomsdatabasen, and SKAT had no way to bring in area prices, square-metre prices or building-right values for Område 1 because the area had never been valued before. On that basis the buyers had not proved any error capable of founding liabilityDomsdatabasen, and Vurderingsstyrelsen was acquittedDomsdatabasen.

For practitioners, the judgment sets a demanding test for valuation-guidance damages cases: a wide miss between an indicative opinion and the final assessment proves nothing by itselfDomsdatabasen, and claims must identify concrete gross errors in the opinion workDomsdatabasen. Estate agents cannot pass responsibility for their sale-particular estimates back to the indicative figuresDomsdatabasen, and waivers given to sellers and agents leave the direct route against the agency open in principle but hard to win. Legal basis is the Østre Landsret judgment of 21 October 2026 in case BS-12341/2022-OLR, applying the public-authority liability test to SKAT's 2013 and 2015 vejledende udtalelser given under the 2006 Dansk Ejendomsmæglerforening arrangement.