No fewer than 400,000 homes in Flanders suffer from serious structural defects. That says Flemish Minister of Housing Matthias Diependaele (N-VA). He is launching a large-scale campaign about the standards that a home must meet.
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“Research from 2013 showed that more than a third of homes in Flanders were not in order with the standards, and 13 percent showed serious defects,” says Diependaele. “Progress has been made since then, but we still have to go much further on that path.”
Photo: BELGA
On the website van Wonen Vlaanderen, everyone can now find the requirements that a home must meet. These seem obvious things: the house must be stable and fireproof, there must be sufficient ventilation, a smoke detector must be present, there must be no rising damp in the walls. “Yet these things often escape attention,” says Diependaele.
If an official of Wonen Vlaanderen or of the municipality finds defects, he can go to a report have the house declared unfit or uninhabitable. “But in this phase we mainly want to raise awareness,” says the minister. “Because that works: a recent campaign on smoke detectors convinced many people of their necessity.”
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