Tenants ask court to freeze free sector rent increases pending Supreme Court ruling
A group of around 540 tenants has taken landlords CBRE Investment Management and Nationale-Nederlanden to court, demanding that they scrap their planned rent increase for July 1. The tenants refer to previous rulings by subdistrict judges that free sector rent increases are unfair and contrary to European consumer protection rules, the Financieele Dagblad reports.
The Supreme Court is currently considering the subdistrict courts’ rulings against landlords like Bouwinvest, Amvest, and ASR. It is unclear when the Supreme Court will rule. The tenants want their rents frozen until that ruling happens.
The standard provision in free sector rental contracts states that landlords may increase rent with inflation. They also have the option to impose an optional surcharge of 3 to 5 percent of the monthly rent. As landlords are not obliged to implement this optional surcharge, that leads to arbitrariness, which is unfair and in conflict with European consumer protection rules, according to previous subdistrict court rulings.
“You cannot expect tenants to pay a rent increase as of July 1 that is based on what several judges consider to be an unfair rental clause,” lawyer Danish Siddiqui fo Forsyte Advocaten, the law firm representing the tenants, told FD. “That is unacceptable. Our demand is simple: let us suspend the rent increase until the Supreme Court provides clarity.”
It could be very costly for landlords if the Supreme Court agrees with the subdistrict courts’ rulings, FD journalist Bas Knoop told BNR. “In the worst case, landlords could miss out on 87.5 billion euros in rental income until 2040,” he said.
