Sofie Linde and Joakim Ingversen, Digi Mart USA News (Snøde, Langeland, Denmark): For years, Sofie Linde and Joakim Ingversen built on their summer house in Snøde on Langeland without the necessary permits, and they had not even applied for approval. According to a public records request obtained by Ekstra Bladet, that has now changed.
The construction work was featured in the TV 2 program “Linde på Langeland,” where the couple was shown hammering, screwing and painting on one ambitious building project after another. Ekstra Bladet has previously reported that the couple, filming with cameras rolling, built a new bathroom, a conservatory and a pool in the garden, and erected a red lighthouse more than nine meters high, all without applying for building permission from the municipality.
Langeland Municipality had informed the couple several years ago that they needed permits. At the end of 2025 the municipality issued a notice of an order to stop construction, prompting the couple to act quickly.
According to the records, the well-known TV couple has since applied for several building permits for structures that were already completed, seeking legalization of work they had already carried out. Langeland Municipality has already approved some of the projects, the records show, including the new bathroom on the first floor, a loft in the house and the renovated garden room.
None of these have yet received a certificate of occupancy, which is a formality once construction is reported as completed.
The outdoor projects face additional requirements. According to the records, a rural zone permit must be obtained before an actual application for legalization of these structures can be processed.
The children’s play structure, the conservatory, the swimming pool and the red lighthouse all require a rural zone permit, according to Langeland Municipality.
The lighthouse would also require an exemption due to its height. No building or part of a building may exceed 8.5 meters above terrain, but the lighthouse measures over nine meters, so a “justified exemption” would be needed.
Ekstra Bladet asked Langeland Municipality whether the couple received special treatment in the case, in which they acted in reverse of the usual order of having permits in place before building. In a text message, the municipality’s head of Technical and Environmental Services, Rikke Fink, said the department is a regulatory authority that handles cases according to current legislation.
As a general rule, an application for retroactive building permission would be granted if the construction complies with current requirements and would have been approved had it been applied for before construction.
Michael Duborg, a building engineer and architect at the consultancy Byggetilladelse.dk, told Ekstra Bladet that the couple’s approach is not unusual. “Overall, there are several people who get building permits after the fact, meaning they apply for legalization.
It is obviously the reverse way of doing it, but it is not unusual that it happens,” he said. Asked about the consequences of building without permission, he said the municipality may require parts of a structure to be removed, though this rarely happens, and that unusual constructions such as a lighthouse are rarer.
He added that building first and applying afterward is “quite a gamble.”
Ekstra Bladet said it attempted without success to obtain a comment from Sofie Linde and Joakim Ingversen. The outlet said it wanted to ask what the couple had learned from the process, whether they would apply for permits before starting new projects in the future, and whether they felt an extra responsibility to follow the rules while building on television.
