Housing associations apply income-related rent increase
Research by the Woonbond shows that almost 40 per cent of housing associations in the Netherlands apply income-related rent increases. While this policy should encourage people to move on, many tenants cannot find another home at all.
This puts them at a financial disadvantage. Moreover, tenants get this rent increase even if the rent is already very high. Therefore, the union calls for the abolition of this unfair and ineffective measure. Read full article in Dutch.
End to regular temporary lease
The regular temporary rental contract that is currently in circulation in the private rental market finally seems to be banned again. After much political wrangling, there is a parliamentary majority in favour of the initiative bill by PvdA and ChristenUnie to ban these contracts. However, exceptions have been made.
The contracts introduced in 2016 create a lot of stress and uncertainty for tenants. They move from temporary solution to temporary solution and risk their rights in case of overdue maintenance, excessive service charges. As such, the Woonbond has long wanted to get rid of them. Read full article in Dutch.
Mandatory (hybrid) heat pump from 2026
From 2026, a central heating boiler (or other gas heating) must be replaced by a (hybrid) heat pump when the heating system is due for replacement. This was decided by the cabinet last year. Last week, Minister Hugo de Jonge came up with a number of exceptions to this obligation, including for flats and flats, for homes within a VVE and monuments.
The government wants to accelerate the switch from fossil energy to renewable energy. Mainly to slow down global warming, but also to be less dependent on Russian gas. One of the measures is to encourage the installation of (hybrid) heat pumps in homes. Read full article in Dutch.
Landlords often disregard rent policy advice
Over 20% of tenants’ organisations feel they have too little say in housing association rental policy. For commercial landlords, this is as much as half of the tenants’ organisations. This is according to research by the Woonbond among affiliated tenants’ organisations
At housing corporations, tenant organisations indicate that in about half of the cases the rental policy has been adjusted as a result of the consultation. For example, by giving inefficient homes a lower rent increase. Tenants’ organisations at housing associations give the consultation an average grade of 6.9 (regulated) or 6.7 (liberalised). Read full article in Dutch.