Students and leases: What exactly does the minister want?
More security for tenants. That was the intention of the Fixed Rent Law passed last year. But last week it turned out that students are on a list of exceptions. What does that mean for your rent?
Fixed rental contracts must become the norm again, the House of Representatives determined last year on the proposal of PvdA and ChristenUnie. Or at least there had to be more certainty.
Thanks to an amendment by SP and D66, those fixed rental contracts would also apply to student rooms. But last week, to their horror, they saw that the minister has put students on a list of exceptions. What does this mean?
How does it work now?
Many students get a campus contract. As long as you study, you are allowed to stay in your apartment and then you have to move out. Private landlords are also allowed to offer such a campus contract. The second option is a temporary contract of up to five years. Less common is a third type of contract: Students who rent a house together are allowed a two-year temporary contract.
What would the new law change about this?
Students would only get campus contracts (as long as they continue to study) or a permanent lease. Only foreign students would get an exception and could get a temporary contract of up to two years.
And now what?
That exception for foreign students is basically going to apply to all students. This is due to European rules, says Housing Minister Hugo de Jonge. He may not distinguish between Dutch and foreign students.
I already have a rental contract, so what does this mean for me?
Nothing at all. Only when you start looking for new housing again will you have to deal with this. The law goes into effect on July 1st.
I am going to look for housing. Will I get a temporary contract just because I am a student?
You might. But perhaps the minister should clarify a little more. Is this exception intended only to rent temporary rooms to interns, assistants, and exchange students, for example? Or will this apply to all students?
I am a part-time student. Will this apply to me as well?
That’s the question. Will a family soon be back on the street after two years if parents study part-time in addition to their work? As it stands now in the regulation, it seems possible. The Woonbond warns against this. Lawyer and special professor of rental law at the University of Groningen Justine van Lochem also thinks this kind of situation is possible. “Whether it will happen a lot, I don’t know, but I suspect that the legislator has not thought about this kind of situation. They just used the standard student as a starting point.”
Why does the minister still even want these short contracts?
Sometimes housing is temporarily vacant, for example for a year, and then permanent leases and campus contracts are not an option. Last year he already warned the House of Representatives that an exception should be made for this.
But does the minister secretly want to make temporary contracts the norm again?
At the same time, he wants to limit rents and impose fines if landlords do not follow the rules. Then it makes no sense for landlords to string together two-year contracts and raise the rent with each new occupant. The rent stays the same anyway.
Are students getting ahead, or not?
That is hard to tell. Will landlords still turn en masse to two-year contracts or will they opt for the campus contract? The Woonbond is afraid that students will soon find themselves at a disadvantage. With a temporary contract, you are less likely to dare to stand up for your rights and complain to the rent committee about excessive rent or service costs, according to the association.
Professor Van Lochem also thinks it is not an improvement. “The temporary lease for up to five years will disappear and a maximum of two years will come in return. That seems to me, in a roundabout way, still a step backwards for students.”
