Charlottenlund, September 5, 2025
The High Court has today handed down a judgment in the so-called “Area Case” regarding part of the sales material used from May 2014 to June 2016 for the Strandgården real estate project on Amager in Denmark.
The High Court upheld the District Court’s judgment that the use of floor plans with floor area indications in the rooms in a sales brochure, which were based on a distribution of the registered areas of the condominiums, constituted a violation of the Danish Marketing Practices Act’s rules on misleading. The High Court upheld the District Court’s acquittal of NPV A/S for the use of the term “net area” on a website for the registered area.
The High Court also reduced NPV’s fine from DKK 2 million to DKK 250,000, even though the Consumer Ombudsman had asked for a higher fine of DKK 5.4 million.
In determining the fine, the High Court emphasized, among other things, that it cannot be assumed that NPV A/S intended or obtained a financial gain from the misleading area declarations. Furthermore, the High Court found that the condominiums in question were, in all cases, sold at the market price at the time of the sale.
This is in line with Lyngby District Court’s judgment of May 20, 2021, where the seller of the apartments was acquitted of financial claims made by some of the buyers. Lyngby District Court found that there were no area-related deficiencies in the apartments in question and that the apartments were generally in accordance with the agreement.
“We have taken note of the judgment. The case was mainly about the fact that, in a sales brochure, we had distributed the registered areas in the floor plans to the condominiums’ rooms without making it sufficiently clear that the areas were registered, and not internally measured areas. We have long since changed our practice, which now follows the recommendations from the Danish Association of Chartered Estate Agents and the Danish Consumer Council Tænk to limit the use of length measurements in floor plans. Furthermore, we note that the High Court has assessed our misconduct at a much lower fine than the District Court, and that the marketing is not described as ‘gross misrepresentation’ by the High Court. Our focus is, and always has been, to ensure transparency for consumers,” says Jens Schaumann, CEO of NPV A/S.
For further information, please visit NPV’s press page: https://npv.as/en/press/