A third of internationals spend between 35% and 50% of their take-home salary each month just on their rent – despite their reputation for wealth, according to a survey of Dutch News readers.

Although “expats” are sometimes blamed for problems on the Dutch housing market, the survey of 692 voluntary respondents found international tenants are the victims of everything from attempted unlawful eviction and deposit theft to inflated service charges and tardy maintenance.

In the survey – which was not representative but included respondents from Amstelveen to Zwolle – just over half of respondents (58%) said they lived in a property belonging to a small-scale private landlord. Almost a fifth lived in a housing corporation flat, and a seventh in a place owned by a large property investor. Three-quarters had lived in the Netherlands for at least two years.

While people said that they were generally fairly happy where they live, with the largest group (38%) ranking this at four out of five, the process of finding a house was almost universally described as “difficult”, “a nightmare” or “impossible and extremely expensive”.

Just under one in 10 said they had firm plans to leave the Netherlands because of the severity of the Dutch housing crisis and almost 46% were considering it.

Costs

When finding a house, some people mentioned the difficulty in satisfying landlord expectations that salaries should be four times rent, the high level of rents in general and issues such as poor insulation.

“It is very expensive, houses usually are very bad[ly] insulated and this usually causes you to use more gas/electricity than expected, resulting in more costs at the end of the year,” wrote one tenant from Enschede. “Usually they don’t give you the deposit back because they blame you for problems that were before you rented the place.”

Almost 30% of respondents were paying €1,500 to €2,000 a month, and just under a fifth had found an apartment for €1,200 to €1,500. One in six were paying at least €2,000 while just over 21% had a mid- or social level of rent, below €1,000 a month.

Some 200 of the respondents said they had been the victim of a scam, had problems with a landlord or had asked the Huurcommissie (rent tribunal) or publicly-funded Woon foundation for help.

Scams

The scams ranged from being sent fake documents and asked for money up front to the theft of their deposits. Some said their landlords were “not responsive for fixing or maintaining things” and one person from Haarlem, paying between €1,200 and €1,500 a month, said: “The landlord wants the rent [but does] no normal maintenance. House roof was leaking, pipes In bathroom leaking, the boiler is leaking. Tiles are breaking off in the bathroom.”

Some complained about being overcharged for services, or landlords “violating rental law in terms of astronomical prices”. Several renters had successfully been to a housing commission, threatened to go to one or taken legal advice, and one wrote that the landlord and estate agent had illegally tried to evict them.

“It cost me €4000 in legal fees to deal with the intimidation and problems,” said the tenant, who pays between 50% and 60% of their take-home salary in rent. “NVM [estate agents group] say it is not worth pursuing as the estate agent will only get a warning if found guilty.”

One respondent said that the landlord used to enter their home without permission, because he had a key; another in Amsterdam said the landlord has broken in “and placed security cameras” – something that was reported to Woon and Amsterdam Council and mentioned separately in a “State of Rentals” report last week.

Some tenants said that although they suspected their landlords were breaching the rules, they did not want to report abuses or go to a rent tribunal because they were afraid their contract might not be renewed.

Good and bad

However, some tenants spoke positively about the new affordable rentals act, which came into power last year, saying they felt lucky to have found good and affordable accommodation.

Several others defended landlords from the charge of being “scammers” and said that landlords keeping a second home as a pension were a valuable part of the housing system in a place like Germany. One suggested that no Dutch housing regulation was working and that it should all be removed.

“A lot of it is driven by the demand and desperation of people, but also by the greed of landlords and private sector housing owners…,” one respondent said. “There is also the issue of people renting out social housing, and preventing tenants from registering their addresses there –  how is this allowed to continue?”

Expats

Some people said they could not buy because of mortgage restrictions for freelancers or because of their age. Discrimination was mentioned as an issue, both based on race and on salary.

Others mentioned “expats”, who have been blamed by Dutch media for housing shortages. “There’s a misconception about expats making the housing market too expensive due to the 30% rule,” said one tenant from Diemen. “The real blame falls on Dutch landlords, housing agents and housing companies.”

Another added that scapegoating immigrants was saddening and did not solve the problem of a housing shortage.

“Which immigrant comes to the Netherlands with the interest of paying €2,000+ [a month] to live near the city centre, in super old, crooked and narrow houses, often without an outside area?” he said. “I think it’s sad, because hype and lobbying drive the local market…I am not Dutch, but I pay Dutch taxes, consume in the local market, my landlord is Dutch, and as an engineer, I help Dutch companies grow and get more profits. If people like me go to other countries, who loses out?”

One respondent, who used to live in Delft, has already gone, citing government policy to stimulate speculation in unaffordable ‘orange bricks’ instead of building enough houses. “Just left NL because of this housing nonsense,” they wrote. “The market is broken.”

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