Text: Legal and Official Language | Finnish Grammar

Finnish administrative and legal prose — virkakieli, "office language" — is the densest register in the language, and for many Finns the most impenetrable. It has three defining habits: it states obligations without ever naming who is obliged to enforce them, it turns actions into nouns, and it stacks long chains of genitives in front of the word they modify. The passage below is an original composition (not a quotation of any real statute), written to be representative of the genre: a fragment of an imaginary building-control regulation. Read it once for the fog, then work through it clause by clause to see exactly how the grammar erases the human agent.

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Everything here is (formal / officialese). The point of reading it is not to imitate it — Finnish officials are under a decades-long push to write more plainly — but to be able to decode it when you meet it in a lease, a permit, or a tax letter. See the wider treatment at officialese (virkakieli).

The text

Rakennuksen omistajan on ilmoitettava kunnan rakennusvalvontaviranomaiselle rakennuksen käyttötarkoituksen muutoksesta viipymättä. Ilmoitus on tehtävä kirjallisesti, ja siihen on liitettävä selvitys muutoksen vaikutuksista rakennuksen paloturvallisuuteen. Ennen muutoksen toteuttamista on hankittava tarvittavat luvat. Mikäli ilmoitusta ei tehdä säädetyssä määräajassa, viranomaisella on oikeus keskeyttää rakennustyö. Päätöksestä, jolla lupa evätään, on ilmoitettava hakijalle kirjallisesti. Hakijalla on oikeus hakea muutosta päätökseen siten kuin hallintolaissa säädetään.

— Original text composed for this guide; representative of Finnish administrative register.

Plain English: The building's owner must notify the municipal building-control authority of a change in the building's use without delay. The notification must be made in writing, and an account of the change's effects on the building's fire safety must be attached to it. Before carrying out the change, the necessary permits must be obtained. If the notification is not made within the prescribed time limit, the authority has the right to halt the construction. A decision by which a permit is refused must be communicated to the applicant in writing. The applicant has the right to appeal the decision in the manner prescribed by the Administrative Procedure Act.

Grammar in action

Clause 1: Rakennuksen omistajan on ilmoitettava … rakennuksen käyttötarkoituksen muutoksesta viipymättä.

Rakennuksen omistajan on ilmoitettava — the necessive construction: a genitive subject (rakennuksen omistajan, "the building's owner", in the genitive) + on
- the passive present participle ilmoitettava ("[is] to-be-notified/to notify"). The obligation is expressed as a state of affairs, not a command; the obligated party sits in the genitive, never the nominative. See the necessive participle and the necessive sentence.
kunnan rakennusvalvontaviranomaiselle — "to the municipal building-control authority", a genitive premodifier (kunnan, "of the municipality") plus a four-part compound noun in the allative. Officialese loves these long, freshly welded compounds.
rakennuksen käyttötarkoituksen muutoksesta — a genitive chain: "of-the-building of-the-use-purpose the-change" = "a change in the building's intended use", the whole phrase in the elative (muutoksesta, the thing notified about). Three nouns deep, and every one but the last is a genitive premodifier.
viipymättä — "without delay", an adverb built on the abessive (-ttä) of the verb viipyä, "to tarry".

Rakennuksen omistajan on ilmoitettava kunnan rakennusvalvontaviranomaiselle rakennuksen käyttötarkoituksen muutoksesta viipymättä.

The building's owner must notify the municipal building-control authority of a change in the building's intended use without delay.

Clause 2: Ilmoitus on tehtävä kirjallisesti, ja siihen on liitettävä selvitys …

Ilmoitus on tehtävä — a subjectless necessive: "the notification is to be made". Here there is no genitive subject at all; nobody is named as the maker. tehtävä is the necessive participle of tehdä ("to do/make"). This agentless obligation is the beating heart of the register — see how the passive strips out the doer.
siihen on liitettävä selvitys — "an account is to be attached to it". siihen = "to it" (illative of se); liitettävä = necessive participle of liittää ("to attach"); selvitys ("account, report") is the nominative thing-to-be-attached.
muutoksen vaikutuksista rakennuksen paloturvallisuuteen — another genitive chain riddled with nominalizations: muutos ("change"), vaikutus ("effect", here elative plural vaikutuksista), paloturvallisuus ("fire safety", illative). English keeps verbs where Finnish officialese reaches for nouns; see nominalization.

Ilmoitus on tehtävä kirjallisesti, ja siihen on liitettävä selvitys muutoksen vaikutuksista rakennuksen paloturvallisuuteen.

The notification must be made in writing, and an account of the change's effects on the building's fire safety must be attached to it.

Clause 3: Ennen muutoksen toteuttamista on hankittava tarvittavat luvat.

Ennen muutoksen toteuttamista — "before carrying out the change". The postposition ennen governs the partitive; toteuttamista is the -minen verbal noun toteuttaminen ("the carrying-out") in the partitive — a textbook nominalization where English would use a gerund or a clause.
on hankittava tarvittavat luvat — "the necessary permits must be obtained". Subjectless necessive again (hankittava from hankkia, "to obtain"); tarvittavat is itself a passive present participle ("[that which is] needed") used attributively, and luvat ("permits", nominative plural) is the thing to be obtained. Note the necessive object here is nominative, not accusative.

Ennen muutoksen toteuttamista on hankittava tarvittavat luvat.

Before carrying out the change, the necessary permits must be obtained.

Clause 4: Mikäli ilmoitusta ei tehdä säädetyssä määräajassa, viranomaisella on oikeus keskeyttää rakennustyö.

Mikäli — the stiff, formal "if" of statutes (everyday Finnish would use jos). ilmoitusta ei tehdä — "the notification is not made", an agentless passive in the negative: tehdä is the passive stem, ei the negator, and the object ilmoitusta is partitive under negation. No one is said to do or fail to do it.
säädetyssä määräajassa — "within the prescribed time limit". säädetyssä is the passive past participle of säätää ("to enact, prescribe"), inessive; määräajassa = "in the set period".
viranomaisella on oikeus keskeyttää rakennustyö — "the authority has the right to halt the construction". A possessive olla-sentence (viranomaisella on…, "on the authority there is…") + oikeus ("right") + the infinitive keskeyttää.

Mikäli ilmoitusta ei tehdä säädetyssä määräajassa, viranomaisella on oikeus keskeyttää rakennustyö.

If the notification is not made within the prescribed time limit, the authority has the right to halt the construction.

Clause 5: Päätöksestä, jolla lupa evätään, on ilmoitettava hakijalle kirjallisesti.

Päätöksestä … on ilmoitettava — "the decision … must be communicated"; elative päätöksestä names what is communicated about, and ilmoitettava is once more the subjectless necessive.
jolla lupa evätään — a relative clause, "by which a permit is refused". jolla is the adessive of the relative pronoun joka ("by/with which"); evätään is the passive present of evätä ("to refuse, deny") — again no human refuser is named.
hakijalle kirjallisesti — "to the applicant, in writing" (allative + adverb).

Päätöksestä, jolla lupa evätään, on ilmoitettava hakijalle kirjallisesti.

A decision by which a permit is refused must be communicated to the applicant in writing.

Clause 6: Hakijalla on oikeus hakea muutosta päätökseen siten kuin hallintolaissa säädetään.

Hakijalla on oikeus hakea muutosta — "the applicant has the right to appeal", literally "to seek change". hakea muutosta ("to seek change") is the fixed legal idiom for lodging an appeal; muutosta is partitive.
päätökseen — "against/to the decision" (illative; hakea muutosta johonkin governs the illative).
siten kuin hallintolaissa säädetään — "in the manner prescribed by the Administrative Procedure Act". siten kuin = "in the way that"; hallintolaissa = "in the Administrative Act" (inessive); säädetään is yet another agentless passive present, "[it] is prescribed" — the law prescribes, but grammatically no one does.

Hakijalla on oikeus hakea muutosta päätökseen siten kuin hallintolaissa säädetään.

The applicant has the right to appeal the decision in the manner prescribed by the Administrative Procedure Act.

The register in one thought

Count the finite active verbs with a named human doer in that whole passage: there are none. Obligations arrive as necessive participles (on ilmoitettava, on tehtävä, on hankittava), processes arrive as passives (ei tehdä, evätään, säädetään), and everything else is nominalized (muutos, toteuttaminen, paloturvallisuus) and buried in genitive chains. This is deliberate: a regulation is meant to bind anyone in the described position, so the grammar deletes the specific person on purpose. That is also exactly why it reads as kapulakieli ("gobbledygook") to ordinary citizens, and why Finnish administration runs an ongoing plain-language reform (selkeä virkakieli) pushing officials toward finite verbs, real subjects, and shorter chains.

Common mistakes

❌ Omistaja on ilmoitettava muutoksesta.

Incorrect — the obligated party in a necessive must be in the genitive, not the nominative.

✅ Omistajan on ilmoitettava muutoksesta.

The owner must report the change. — genitive subject 'omistajan'.

❌ Ilmoitus on tehty kirjallisesti.

Wrong meaning — 'on tehty' is the perfect passive ('has been made'), a statement of fact, not an obligation.

✅ Ilmoitus on tehtävä kirjallisesti.

The notification must be made in writing. — necessive participle 'tehtävä' carries the obligation.

❌ Viranomaisen toimesta lupa evätään.

Clumsy — bolting an explicit agent ('by the authority') onto a passive undoes the whole point and reads as bad officialese.

✅ Lupa evätään.

The permit is refused. — the agentless passive is the natural register; name the actor only if the law genuinely requires it.

❌ Ennen kuin muutos toteutetaan, pitää hankkia luvat.

Not wrong, but this is spoken-register phrasing — a finite clause plus 'pitää' — not statute style.

✅ Ennen muutoksen toteuttamista on hankittava tarvittavat luvat.

Before carrying out the change, the necessary permits must be obtained. — nominalization + necessive is the officialese.

Key takeaways

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Officialese hides the agent by design. Obligations come as the necessive participle (on tehtävä, on ilmoitettava) and events come as agentless passives (evätään, säädetään). If you can name a doer, you are not writing virkakieli — and, per the plain-language reform, you are probably writing better Finnish.

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The genitive subject is the necessive's fingerprint. Whoever must act stands in the genitive: omistajan on ilmoitettava, not omistaja on ilmoitettava. Get this one case wrong and the sentence collapses.

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Nouns do the work verbs do in English.toteuttaminen ("carrying-out"), muutos ("change"), paloturvallisuus ("fire safety") — the register nominalizes actions and then stacks them in genitive chains. Decoding a clause often means turning its long noun back into the verb it came from.

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