Mayor files charges over "no foreigners" rental listing

Mayor Frank Streng of the municipality of Medemblik filed charges against a realtor for putting "discriminatory texts" in an advertisement for a rental in the city in mid-November. The broker said that "the municipality of Medemblik does not like foreigners, so you cannot live here," in protest against the municipality's housing policy.

But according to Streng, that's nonsense. The municipality wanted to prevent the house from being rented out to multiple migrant workers and the migrant workers being taken advantage of, he said in the program 'De 7 burgemeesters van West-Friesland', NH Nieuws reports.

"The business model is, of course, that your ent out a house to ex-pats at an expensive price," said Streng. "If a house is divided into four, it is a gold mine." So the municipality labeled the house as a single-family home, where only one household can live at a regular, market-based rent, he said. "And that doesn't make a broker happy."

According to Steng, the policy is intended "to make the housing stock in the municipality of Medemblik fairer and more accessible."

The broker in question told NH Nieuws that the text was not discriminatory. "We specialize in housing foreign workers, but we no longer received a permit for this rental house," director Dennis Stello said.