Accuracy and reliability

Overall accuracy

By screening out announced forced sales with the same owner, it is ensured that major fluctuations are minimised. There may be cases where one owner owns several properties, e.g. a single-family house, an owner-occupied flat, a summer house and a business property which are all subjected to a forced sale and accordingly announced in the Danish Official Gazette. There may also be cases where an enterprise owns many properties. If each announced forced sale is included in the count, major fluctuations could potentially occur and the statistics would not give a true and fair view.

All forced sales are announced in the Danish Official Gazette no later than 14 days before the public sale takes place. Right up to the forced sale takes place, the owner of the property may seek to prevent the sale by paying the creditor. In that case, the public auction will be cancelled. This means that there is a difference between an announced and an enforced forced sale.

Sampling error

The statistic is a total statement for announcements of forced sales of real property.

Non-sampling error

The compilation of the number of announced forced sales is generally assessed to be subject to limited uncertainty, which can primarily be attributed to registration errors and repeat occurrences.

The data are based on announcements of forced sales published in the Danish Official Gazette, in connection with which registration errors may occur. However, this is not considered to have a significant impact on the quality of the statistics, as the received data are cross-checked against information in the official registers, including the Building and Housing Register (BBR), as part of the validation carried out by Statistics Denmark. In cases where the information in an announcement deviates from the register data, a manual check is performed.

Missing notifications of requested forced sales to the Danish Department of Civil Affairs are not considered to be a significant source of uncertainty, as it is mandatory to announce a forced sale in the Danish Official Gazette no later than 14 days before the auction takes place in order for it to be conducted. The share of incomplete notifications is also assessed to be negligible and missing information will most often be completed during the validation of the data at Statistics Denmark.

As the primary purpose of the statistics is to illustrate economic trends rather than to provide a count of actually conducted forced sales, properties with the same title holder are excluded so that each title holder appears only once in the monthly count of announced forced sales. This is done to ensure that a single title holder with several properties subject to forced sale does not result in large fluctuations in the statistics that are not compatible with the general economic situation. This exclusion is carried out automatically by comparing the names of the individual title holders included in the statistics for a given month. However, this means that the exclusion is vulnerable to registration errors in the form of spelling mistakes. In addition, the exclusion of identical title holders is subject to some uncertainty in cases where the title holder is subject to name and address protection.

Similarly, checks are carried out to ensure that each auction is counted only once by excluding, among other things, second auctions, reschedulings and postponements. Cancellations are also excluded from the data basis and are therefore not included in the count.

To ensure the quality of the published figures, the calculations are carried out automatically in a dedicated production system that has been thoroughly tested prior to implementation. Calculation errors are therefore not considered to be a significant source of uncertainty in the statistics.

With regard to the seasonally adjusted figures for the number of announced forced sales, these are subject to a certain degree of inherent uncertainty. This uncertainty is particularly pronounced for the most recent figures, which are often revised in subsequent releases. A general prerequisite for seasonal adjustment is that the seasonal pattern is stable over time. In this context, it should be noted that the seasonal adjustment of the most recent observations is partly based on a forecast of the current series. Sudden fluctuations in the development of the series therefore increase the uncertainty associated particularly with the most recent figures. For this reason, only the total number of forced sales is seasonally adjusted and not forced sales broken down by property category or region.

Quality management

Statistics Denmark follows the recommendations on organisation and management of quality given in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and the implementation guidelines given in the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF). A Working Group on Quality and a central quality assurance function have been established to continuously carry through control of products and processes.

Quality assurance

Statistics Denmark follows the principles in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and uses the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF) for the implementation of the principles. This involves continuous decentralized and central control of products and processes based on documentation following international standards. The central quality assurance function reports to the Working Group on Quality. Reports include suggestions for improvement that are assessed, decided and subsequently implemented.

Quality assessment

With the exception of changes in the geographical break-down, including the Structural reform in 2007, the statistics have been comparable since 1979. This makes these statistics interesting in terms of comparing the development with other macro-economic indicators across several economic cycles. Furthermore, the statistics are not subject to any bias due to the counting unit combined with the fact that a total assessment is concerned. However, the quality of the statistics depends on the accuracy of the information entered in the forced sales advertisements in the Danish Official Gazette.

Data revision - policy

Statistics Denmark revises published figures in accordance with the Revision Policy for Statistics Denmark. The common procedures and principles of the Revision Policy are for some statistics supplemented by a specific revision practice.

Data revision practice

Only final figures are published. However, the seasonally adjusted figures are revised back in time on an ongoing basis if the seasonal pattern changes.