Rents have increased by more than 35% over the past 10 years. More than 800,000 tenants have too little left to spend on the necessary costs and living expenses after paying the rent. Action group 'We Refuse the Rent Increase' is therefore fighting for a multi-year rent freeze to make housing affordable again for everyone, and to keep it that way.
Action is needed to make this possible. Action group Wij Weigeren de Huurverhoging helps tenants to organize themselves. Sign up now and follow the step-by-step plan to refuse the proposal to increase the rent as of 1 July. In addition, you can also donate, so that in the coming period we can bring this campaign to the attention of as many tenants as possible and enforce a multi-year rent freeze!
Signing up for our action and following the step-by-step plan are the first steps you can take as a tenant to refuse the rent increase and enforce a rent freeze, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. What happens after you register? What can you expect from us, and what do we expect from you? What other steps can you take to enforce our rent freeze demand and make our campaign a success? We go into more detail on the page about us. Do you have a specific question? Then take a look between our Frequently Asked Questions.
The action campaign We Refuse the Rent Increase is an initiative of and is partly made possible by the Bond Precaire Woonvormen (BPW). Want to know more about this association that fights for the right to housing and the city, join and join the national solidarity network? Read more on the page about the union.
Refusing the rent increase in the social/regulated sector starts with following the steps in our Step-by-step plan. Click on the arrow to read a detailed explanation per step. Prefer the complete step-by-step plan as a clear PDF? Download here in Dutch or in English
You can sign up for the action alone or together with your street, neighborhood, resident committee or tenants association using this form on our website.
Note: This step-by-step plan is based on a rent increase as of 1 July in the social rental sector. If your rent increase takes effect on a different date, different terms will apply. Do you rent in the free sector? Then not all steps from this step-by-step plan apply. You can still join the action to put pressure on your landlord and politicians. However, this entails more risks. Do you have questions about this? Contact us.
You can arrange this immediately with our standard letter (download pdf)! Fill in the letter and send it by e-mail or post to your landlord. Feel free to ask for a confirmation of receipt. Make sure that you stop the direct debit before mid-June .
Note: It is important that you continue to pay the rent every month until July 1st. Due to the withdrawal of the rent collection, nothing will change in the rent payment until 1 July.
Before May 1st Soon you will receive a written proposal from your landlord to adjust the rent: in practice, this is almost always a rent increase. This letter contains the newly proposed rental price as of 1 July. You can also read that you can submit a notice of objection to your landlord before 1 July. To be able to participate in our promotion, we strongly advise you not to use this. It reduces your chance of success and you only saddle yourself with unnecessary paperwork. Nor is it necessary. Will you only receive the proposal for a rent increase after 1 May? Contact us.
Continue to pay the old rent after 1 July. Arrange a periodic transfer via internet banking of the entire rental amount that you already paid before 1 July. The start date of this new standing order is July 1 (or the day on which you are used to paying the rent). This way you can be sure that you will continue to pay the old rent and prevent you from building up rent arrears.
Also set up a periodic transfer with the amount of the rent increase to your savings account. By putting aside the saved money from next July, you prevent any debts in the future. (see step 9)
You have already taken the most important steps! Please note that you are not doing anything that it is illegal. You can always stop participating in our action and reverse the steps mentioned above. Read what the Legal Counter (Juridisch Loket) has to say about the legal possibility of refusing a rent increase.
From experience we know that these first steps might be scary for some tenants. It is therefore advised to maintain regular contact in order to support each other in this action. We will continue pushing the action and demands to landlords and politicians through media and direct actions.
From July 1st you continue to pay the old rent and put the amount of the rent increase into your savings account each month, as described above. Your landlord's rent collection agency might notice that you have not paid the rent increase and send you an automatically issued payment reminder. The collection agency might send you a payment reminder for the rent arrears. The landlord or the collection agency does not have a legal basis on sending a reminder. Therefore, you are not in debt arrears.
The landlord might continue to send regular payment reminders whose tone can become increasingly threatening. These letters have no legal basis. 1st reminder, 2nd reminder, demand, last warning, pass on data to the municipality, pass on data to the collection agency, threaten with a bailiff: landlords are persistent and intimidating, while these letters are not permitted by law: after all, you are not in debt arrears.
It is also possible that your landlord contacts you by telephone about your “debt” and attempt to negotiate payments. You only have to say that you are not in debt arrears and that the landlord needs to sort this out internally.
If you have not submitted a notice of objection to your landlord before July 1 and you have not paid the rent increase, the landlord can only do one thing. They have to send you a registered letter within three months after July 1 (so before October 1st of that year). In this letter, the landlord repeats his rent increase proposal from the the 1st May. This is the legal route the landlord must follow in order to obtain the rent increase. The letter is registered because the landlord must be able to prove to the Rent Commission at a later date that the tenant was aware of the proposal.
Is your landlord too late in sending a registered letter? before October 1st then the rent increase will legally not take place as of 1 July. Congratulations, you have successfully refused the rent increase!
If you refuse the rent increase, the tenant must submit the rent increase to the Rent Assessment Committee, and after 1 October that option will expire. So your rent will remain the same this year.
If your landlord does send a registered before October 1st, then as a tenant you have to decide what to do:
If you decide in the previous step to go to the Huurcommissie, you must submit a petition before November 1st. If necessary, contact your own tenants' organization for help with filing a petition.
The costs for filing an application with the Huurcommissie are 25 euros and, as a tenant, you will receive an invoice for this. Tenants on social assistance benefits or similar income may be exempt from paying the 25 euros. Consider the legal fees as the only, one-time costs for participating in our action.
Now that you have notified the Huurcommissie, you will have to wait for their response. The Rent Commission can ask you to send additional documents, make a presiding decision or summon you to a hearing. Even then you can contact your tenants' organization for support or report this to us.
This website provides a step-by-step plan for formally refusing a rent increase. As a tenant, you remain responsible in all cases for the steps you take or have taken when refusing a rent increase. The initiators of this website accept no liability in any form whatsoever.
We regularly organize online webinars to inform residents and tenant associations about the progress of the campaign 'We refuse the rent increase' and to answer questions. Want to know more? Sign up through the form!
Action meeting
On January 28, we are organizing a first national action meeting in Apeldoorn! The purpose of this day is to meet tenants who would like to become active and want to strengthen our national organization. Come and meet us and get active!
Saturday, January 28, 2:00-5:00 p.m
Apeldoorn, Café Nova, Marktstraat 20
(10 minutes walk from the station)
You can register here.
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read moreSupport Wij Weigeren de Huurverhoging with a donation! With your donation we will finance the website and campaign costs, among other things, and we can make this action as widely known as possible at national and local level, in politics and among tenants in the coming months.
Thanks for the support!
Make a more sustainable contribution to We Refuse the Rent Increase and housing movement in general? Consider then become a member of the BPW!
Sign up and keep us informed about local actions through:
For press contact see contact details at the bottom of the website.
Do you want to commit yourself to our campaign? You can! Anyone who refuses the rent increase or supports our action can order action material via de Rode Lap! There are posters, stickers & flyers available to show your entire neighborhood that you refuse the rent increase this year! We encourage residents, neighbors, associations, or (action) groups to organize a flyer campaign locally and to go door-to-door against the rent increase! Do you want tips or help to organize such a local action? contact us.
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