Tenants' complaints about rent service costs increased 60% last year

The Rent Assessment Committee received a record number of complaints from tenants about service costs in 2023. Last year, over 3,800 tenants objected to the service costs charged by their landlord, 60 percent more than the year before. The Committee usually ruled in the tenant’s favor, it said in its annual report on Wednesday.

In 90 percent of service cost complaints filed against private landlords, the Rent Assessment Committee ruled in the tenant’s favor. The same was true for 58 percent of complaints filed against housing corporations. On average, these tenants saw their service costs reduce by 660 euros per year.

Landlords can charge service costs for things like garden maintenance, cleaning, water, and gas. Every year before July 1, they have to send their tenants a final statement showing whether the actual costs incurred were higher or lower than those charged in the past year and settle the difference. According to the Rent Assessment Committee, some smaller private landlords struggle with this administration and don’t settle the differences correctly.

But the Committee also saw “commercial landlords who push the boundaries to increase their revenue through service cost,” chairman Jurriën Deckers said in an interview with the presentation of the annual report, according to NOS.

About 35 percent of the service cost cases the Rent Assessment Committee handled last year involved large residential complexes, with ten or more residential units. According to the Committee, many of these complexes charge low rents that fall under social housing but then add significant service costs. The Committee ruled in several cases that the service costs were too high for the service provided.

It also found several cases where these landlords were passing on costs that could not reasonably be included in service costs. “This seems to happen more often now that landlords are realizing new residential concepts in which they include costs for, for example, a gym, music studio, or cinema room in the complex in the service costs.” These are not service costs and require a separate service agreement with the tenants, the Committee said.

The Rent Assessment Committee attributed the sharp increase in complaints partly to more attention to service costs in the media and politics. Landlords likely also increased the advanced payment in the past two years due to the higher energy prices.