Large property owners such as Vesteda, Bouwinvest and Heimstaden no longer want tenants to bring in new people when they leave. They want to prevent rental properties in the private sector from going to the highest bidder.
Tenants often ask the new tenant to take over the floor and curtains in exchange for a nomination. According to property owners, exorbitant amounts are sometimes asked for these items, up to more than ten thousand euros.
“That is a disguised and dubious way of asking for key money,” said a Vesteda spokesperson. The company owns more than 27,000 homes throughout the Netherlands. Nearly a quarter of the homes that become available are rented out through the internet.
11.000 euro
According to Vesteda, the nomination was until recently to the satisfaction of all parties: the company did not have to find tenants and the old and new tenants could make agreements together about the takeover of items.
“But with the increasing shortage on the housing market, we received more and more complaints,” says spokesman Vesteda. “Firstly, about homes that did not come online. In addition, there were more and more signals that the requested acquisition costs were not in proportion to the value of the items.”
“For example, a departing tenant asked via social media for a takeover sum of 11,000 euros for a laminate floor and some second-hand furniture. We then started to keep a closer eye on social media and saw that our houses were being offered for high prices.”
Excesses
As of this month, the property owner therefore no longer accepts proposed candidate tenants for homes with a rent below 1400 euros, because they are the most popular. The company has another important reason: to make the distribution of homes fair again, so that everyone now has an equal chance again.
Bouwinvest has not been accepting nominations for rental prices below 1200 euros since 2020, for the same reasons. “We also saw the excesses in the transfer of homes in that segment at the time. These are situations that you as a landlord want to avoid,” says a spokesperson. “In addition, we want tenderers for a home to have an equal chance.”
Heimstaden says it has not received many complaints so far, partly because new tenants are brought in less often. “That does not alter the fact that we should take the signals from Vesteda seriously,” says a spokesperson. “We have therefore decided to stop nominating candidate tenants for all our homes.”
Earlier we made the following explainer video about how the housing crisis started:
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