No major social housing rent increases in the coming years

Tenants of social rental housing do not have to worry about any extreme rent increases in the coming years. The association of housing corporations Aedas and the Woonbond made a new social lease agreement in which they agreed that social housing tenants will not carry the costs of making their homes more energy-efficient. And rents will rise by no more than inflation in the coming years, RTL Nieuws reports.

The agreement still has to be approved by the members of both organizations.

In the coming years, the housing corporations will have to invest millions of euros into making their homes more energy efficient. Many tenants were worried that those costs would end up coming from their wallets, but that will not be the case. "The rents may be increased if homes are made more sustainable, but with no more than part of the benefit in the energy bill. So the residents must be better off. The climate agreement will therefore not come at the tenants' expense", Aedes chairman Marix Norder said, according to the broadcaster.

Another important change in the new lease agreement, according to Woonbond director Paulus Jansen, is that agreements were made to help people with a low income and an expensive rental home. Their rents will be frozen, not increased. "And if the rent is above the threshold of social housing, it will be reduced to one euro below, so that people are eligible for rent allowance", he said.

The general rent increase is one percent lower than over the past years. However it is possible that regional agreements are made between corporations, municipalities and tenants organization to pay up to a maximum of one percent more. This is necessary, for example, if large investments are made in new homes in a region, while the corporation is short on cash.