International students face more housing fraud, union warns

More international students in the Netherlands are running into housing fraud, illegal lettings and squalid rooms, the national student union, the LSVb, has warned. It told the AD newspaper it had received 263 requests for help on its hotline this year.

The cases ranged from unsafe and unhygienic rooms to online scams in which would-be tenants paid large deposits and were then defrauded, the union said.

One student described living in a small, windowless room with a hole in the wall, with no contract, for €725 a month. Another had put up with a bedbug infestation for months because the landlord would not act, according to the LSVb.

Internationals are more exposed because they cannot fall back on a parental home and often do not know their rights, the union said. “Students often don’t really know where they can get help”, chair Maaike Krom told the AD.

Disappearing support
The warning comes as two big student cities scrap the free, independent rental teams that help tenants challenge overcharging and poor conditions.

Utrecht is ending its team to save €217,000 a year, the tenants’ association Woonbond said, and Rotterdam is also withdrawing funding.

Utrecht’s team carried out 356 rent checks last year and recovered nearly €558,000 for tenants, according to the Woonbond. Renters in both cities can still report problems to a council hotline, but that route is slower and less familiar.

The cuts add to a longer squeeze, with the number of rooms let by private landlords dropping sharply as owners leave the rental market in response to new rent rules and higher taxes.

International student numbers fell for the first time since 2006 this academic year, to 129,764, internationalisation agency Nuffic said – a decline the government has sought as it works to limit recruitment. The shortage has also pushed more students to stay at home for longer.

Those already here still remain vulnerable. Rooms are still routinely advertised as closed to internationals, which lawyers say may breach anti-discrimination rules, and some universities have urged students not to arrive without housing arranged.

The LSVb runs a Housing Hotline offering internationals advice on spotting scams and checking whether a rent is lawful. Most student rooms are rent-capped under a points system, and tenants who are overcharged can ask the rent tribunal, the Huurcommissie, to lower the amount.