Iceland Roundup: Listener Questions, Winter Arrival, Fining The Bankers & Police Raids

The Reykjavík Grapevine’s Iceland Roundup brings you the top news with a healthy dash of local views. In this episode, Grapevine publisher Jón Trausti Sigurðarson is joined by Heimildin editor Aðalsteinn Kjartansson and Grapevine friend and contributor Sindri Eldon to round up the stories making headlines in recent weeks.

On the docket this week:

We’re expecting a lot of snow in Iceland over the next 24-48 hours, with snowfall of up to 20-30 centimetres in the south and east of the country, including Reykjavík;

A mother and son who arrived at Landmannalaugar in the Icelandic Highlands on Saturday, in decent weather, woke up the next day to deep snow, leaving them stranded far from civilisation. They had to be towed out by SAR;

The last Icelandic criminal case related to the 2008 banking collapse was resolved in 2021. However, one case in Luxembourg remained — and that case was finally concluded with a settlement in a Luxembourg court last week. The case in question, known as the Lindsor case, had been under investigation for 15 years and involved the bank Kaupþing buying up bonds from its own employees just days before its collapse in October 2008. The three men under investigation, former CEO of Kaupþing in Iceland, Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson, former CEO of Kaupþing in Luxembourg, Magnús Guðmundsson, and a Luxembourg-based broker named Gabriel, each had to pay 11 million ISK (around 75.000 EUR) as part of the settlement;

Following a recent Supreme Court ruling on inflation-indexed housing loans, all major Icelandic banks have stopped issuing such loans. Previously, about 60% of housing loans were indexed or pegged to inflation. These loans have remained popular because, although they take longer to pay off, the monthly instalments are lower than on non-indexed loans. The result, at least temporarily, is that very few Icelanders can currently take out a housing loan. This means the housing market, already struggling due to a combination of post-Covid price hikes, increased immigration, and a shortage of new apartments, has come to a halt as new buyers are unable to secure loans;

Twice this year, police have entered the wrong house while carrying out searches. In one case, the court order had the correct street name but the wrong house number. Police broke down the apartment door and arrested the resident, who was understandably shocked. In the other case, officers raided an apartment building where the individual units were not specifically numbered and entered the wrong flat.