Minister wants to put longer hold on private sector rent increase
Minister De Jonge wants to extend the law that caps annual rent increases in the free sector. In this way, he wants to prevent rents from rising sharply next year. An initiative bill by Henk Nijboer of the PvdA put a cap on annual rent increases in the free sector for the first time in 2021. This law is valid for three years, until May 2024. The minister now wants to extend the law by three years. The Woonbond earlier pointed out the need to extend the law.
The law -formerly known as the ‘Maximum Rent Increase for Liberalised Rental Agreements Act’- was recently evaluated. That evaluation showed that landlords of liberalised houses still regularly implemented rent increases higher than legally permitted. Although the line is decreasing. Read full article in Dutch…
8 in 10 notifications in commercial sector involve wrong letting behaviour
The Woonbond received 168 stories on the hotline for tenants with a commercial landlord so far this year. 136 of these involved wrong behaviour by the landlord. This ranges from unfairly charging a lot of money to intimidating and threatening tenants. Ignoring maintenance requests is also a common complaint.
“They act as if we are crazy,” says a Rotterdam tenant who shared her story on the hotline for tenants with a commercial landlord. “An email to the landlord gets no response, a phone call is ignored anyway. Invariably, we tenants have to chase it ourselves. Only under duress, with the help of a lawyer or the press, does the landlord take action to do maintenance. Read full article in Dutch…
Rents continue to get more expensive, housing supply falls
Despite government regulatory measures, rental prices in the free sector continue to rise, while supply is falling. According to a housing platform, in the second quarter of this year, 27 per cent fewer rental properties were offered in the five major cities than a year ago.
The average rental price per square metre rose by 5 to almost 8 per cent in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Eindhoven. Especially in the big cities, the rent increase is rising hard, the organisation notes. Read full article in Dutch…