In 1999, Ungdomshuset was put up for sale by the Copenhagen City Council. The house had originally been "given" to the city's community of squatters back in 1982 after the squatters had campaigned for an autonomous youth centre in Copenhagen. The agreement between the squatters and the city council was that the city authorities still officially owned the building but that the users of Ungdomshuset would be free to run the place as they saw fit, without interference from those authorities. Basic things such as paying rent still had to be meet by the users but otherwise the house would be completely autonomous and self-organized. The house soon became a gathering place for the city punk and alternative music scene and also became home to many political action groups as well as an underground performance scene.