Complaints about mold, leaks, drafts in rental homes up 30% last year

The number of complaints from tenants about maintenance defects in their rental homes increased sharply last year, the Rent Assessment Committee reported. Last year, the committee that handles rent and maintenance disputes between tenants and landlords received over 5,800 complaints about mould, leaks, and drafts - over 30 percent more than in 2023 and even 50 percent more than in 2022.

The Rent Assessment Committee ruled in the tenants’ favor in the majority of these maintenance defect cases. Housing corporations won 40 percent of these cases, and private landlords won 33 percent.

The Rent Assessment Committee believes that insufficient maintenance is the main culprit in these cases, but other factors also play a role. “Climatic issues” like mild winters and high energy costs forcing tenants to heat their homes less could also play a role in mould development, for example. Mould was the biggest issue faced by Dutch tenants last year, being mentioned in over a third of the cases.

“In the majority of cases, our investigations show that the cause of mould lies in a structural defect or overdue maintenance,” Pieter Heerma, chairman of the Rent Assessment Committee, told NRC. But tenants are also responsible for some minor maintenance, such as heating and ventilating their homes sufficiently. “If the mould is mainly behind a radiator, it may be that the tenants are not heating enough.”

In total, the Rent Assessment Committee handled 18,500 disputes between tenants and landlords last year, also an increase of 30 percent compared to the year before.

The number of complaints about rent increases also rose dramatically, by around 60 percent. According to Heerma, this spike is due to landlords being allowed to increase rents significantly last year for the first time in several years. “That led to a social discussion about the affordability of housing,” Heerma said, and as a result, more people went to the Rent Assessment Committee.

The Rent Assessment Committee ruled in the landlords’ favor in the vast majority of rent increase cases. “The rent increase may also explain part of the increase in the number of cases about defects,” Heerma said to the newspaper. “The defects could have been going on for a while, but tenants could decide to report them to us now because of the rent increase.”