Students and tenants in shared apartments almost always win rental disputes

It is worth contacting the Rent Assessment Committee if you have any doubts about excessive rents or service charges. Almost all tenants of non-owner-occupied apartments, such as students or people in shared apartments, receive justice after a dispute with their landlord, according to figures from the Rent Assessment Committee, which the ANP obtained.

The number of cases fluctuates each year, but since 2019, the Rent Assessment Committee has dealt with around 4,900 cases involving people in non-owner-occupied apartments. In more than eight out of ten cases, tenants were fully vindicated. Landlords were only fully vindicated in 10 percent of cases. Sometimes, both the landlord and the tenant were right. A decision by the Rent Committee is always binding and is based on laws and regulations.

In particular, tenants of shared flats in student cities often turn to the Rent Assessment Committee almost 4,300 times. A quarter of all cases concerned apartments in Utrecht. In Groningen, too, many tenants of non-self-occupied apartments turned to the Rent Assessment Committee.

On July 1, the Affordable Rent Act came into force, allowing a larger group of tenants and landlords to turn to the Rent Assessment Committee in the event of problems with rent and other housing disputes.

Points system

In more than one in three cases, the tenant paid more rent than is allowed. The Rent Assessment Committee uses a points system to determine how much a house or room may cost. A maximum rent price is linked to each number of points. As a result, the rent price can sometimes be considerably lower. For example, in August, the rent price of a room in Rotterdam decreased from more than 600 euros to almost 250 euros per month.

Almost half of all cases concerning non-independent living spaces concerned the settlement of service costs. A tenant of a room in Nijmegen received a final settlement of more than 1,250 euros for 2021. The Rent Assessment Committee decided last June that this should have been slightly less than 340 euros.

Concerns at LSVb

The National Student Union (LSVb) is concerned about the high rents that students pay. "We see that many students pay too much for their student room and because of the shortage of rooms, students do not have much choice."

In addition, students are especially vulnerable according to the LSVb: "Students are exempt from the new law that prohibits temporary contracts. That makes the step to go to the Rent Assessment Committee extra big. Students are often afraid that they will get into trouble with the landlord and their rental contract will not be extended." To make the threshold a little lower, the LSVb advises students to first contact a rental team. They can assess the situation without obligation.