A ‘gigantic association’ of banks, consumers, estate agents, mortgage advisors and financial sector supervisors is demanding changes to mortgage tax relief, making change inevitable, the AD reports on Wednesday.

The current Dutch system, allowing home owners to deduct all their mortgage repayments from tax for 30 years, needs to be reformed because consumer confidence in the housing market has reached new depths, the paper says.
On Tuesday it emerged that the banks are also calling for reform and that the country’s two biggest mortgage suppliers – Rabobank and ING – have come up with their own suggestions.
Measures
According to home affairs ministry figure, some 10,000 people move home a month, compared with 17,000 before the crisis.
Minister Liesbeth Spies says in the Financieele Dagblad on Wednesday the government has already taken steps to restore consumer confidence in the market, by reducing property transfer tax and expanding the mortgage guarantee scheme.
‘You also have to look a the economic context,’ she said. ‘It is not just up to the government to boost the housing market.’ Spies has also said it will be easier for people who cannot sell their home but have bought a new one to rent out the original property.
Construction
The FD also reports on Wednesday that the number of new homes being built in the Netherlands has fallen to ‘dramatic levels’.
Nico Rietdijk, director of the property developers association NVB says ‘far-reaching reorganisations’ in the construction sector are now unavoidable.
He partly blames the malaise on banks themselves who have reduced the amount of money people can borrow.
Cuts
The issue is also likely to be central in talks between the minority government and the anti-Islam PVV when they get round the negotiating table to decide on further cuts.
The CDA, once strongly opposed to reform, is now openly admitting change may be necessary but Geert Wilders has said he will call for new elections if the tax deduction is cut.
The ruling VVD favours reform but has committed itself to make no changes during the life of this cabinet.