Because the legislation is complex, we recommend that you grab the overview below while reading this explanation.
There are both Laws (drafted by our government and parliament) and Royal Decrees (drafted by the government and signed by the royal house) that dictate how we treat each other in the Netherlands.
Our Civil Code prescribes in many detailed rules, also called articles of law, how people (citizens) should treat each other ethically and the consequences if they do not. The Civil Code consists of a total of 9 books, of which Civil Code Book 7 deals with “special contracts” (because the “normal contracts” have already been dealt with in Book 6).
Book 7 again consists of six sections. Of all types of special agreements, Section 5 deals with rent, and within Section 5, Title 4 deals specifically with rental housing. This contains many of the rules of law (in outline) that protect you.
Some regulations (such as the Housing Rents Implementation Act) and royal decrees (such as the Housing Rents Decree ) prescribe in detail how law regerls are followed and how prices are calculated.
Rent Help applies this kind of relevant detailed elaboration to argue your rent reduction, so we can usually convince the landlord directly that your reduction is entirely fair.
Even if you share the correct rules of law with the landlord, there may still be room for “interpretation. To remain as objective as possible in our own judgment and in our communication to landlords, we constantly analyze new rulings of the Rent Commission , the Courts and even the Supreme Court . .
This gives us the confidence to state that it really is true that you can lower after all, even if at first it seems too good to be true.
