Landlords Rotterdam roam free: rental property illegally split up
The municipality of Rotterdam does not intervene when houses are being split against the rules into far too small ‘flats’ and rented out for top prices. The practices go against the official ban on house splitting and yet the municipality does not enforce.
After all, splitting helps combat the housing shortage and prevent overcrowding. But the tolerance policy allows landlords to effortlessly charge far too high rents to their tenants. Read full article in dutch…
Rental homes in Almere increasingly less affordable
Many people from Almere are looking for a home. Every year, more than 18,000 house seekers respond to the affordable rental homes offered by landlords through WoningNet.
Almere once started with enough space for tenants, when the first key was handed over to a tenant. Back then, more than half of the houses in Almere were still social housing, now only a quarter of the Almere stock. Read full article in dutch…
Cabinet’s rental policy leads to fewer, not more, rental homes
there is a huge shortage of affordable housing, which is being exacerbated by government policies. One of the spearheads of housing minister Hugo de Jonge (CDA) is ‘regulating’ the ‘middle rent‘. Although from all indications, this does not lead to more, but less rental housing. Read full article in dutch…
Tenant wins in dispute over ‘membership fees’
Perhaps the most remarkable rental home news: The landlord of Amsterdam’s Don Bosco complex charged so-called ‘membership fees’ of €30 a month in addition to basic rent (€895) and service charges (€95). This is not allowed, the subdistrict court ruled.
In court, the landlord demanded money from a former tenant. The latter had not paid his last month’s rent. For twenty months, he and his housemate had paid ‘membership fees’. The tenant had repeatedly asked the landlord what these membership fees were for, but repeatedly got no answer. Therefore, the tenant decided to deduct what he considered to be undue membership fees from the last month’s rent. Read full article in dutch…