Take action!

Take action!

You’ve found a room! What’s next?

The costs of renting a room are limited by law: ‘maximum allowed rent’

69% of the students in Utrecht pay too much. There is a big chance you are part of them. Do you want to know whether you pay to much? Check the points on this site and you’ll know straightaway!

10 golden rules

  1. Check the rent by the rental committee, there’s a huge chance you will pay less.
  2. If you pay an inclusive price, have the rental committee split the rent, which will also pay off.
  3. You are not obliged to sign a new contract on your landlords’ request, only if it is a reasonable offer. A higher fee or service charges are never reasonable!
  4. In a contract for a limited time, the landlord needs to give a notice to leave one month before the contract expires. If the landlords fails to do this, the contract will automatically be changed to a indefinite contract.
  5. The notice of leave to the landlord is three months for an indefinite contract, plus one month for every year you live there, up to half a year.
  6. If your landlord decides to sell the house, you are not obliged to leave. The only thing that changes is your landlord.
  7. If your landlord cancels the rent, you won’t need to leave until he convinces the court that he is allowed to do so.
  8. No contract? You still have rental rights! Just have proof of paying rent ready.
  9. Don’t become main tenant without a water tight contract, you don’t want to be responsible for the rent of your roommates.
  10. If you pay monthly, you have at least a month of notice to leave regardless of what is told in the contract.

Don’t forget to check some important facts and examples regarding your contract, extra costs and possible subsidy!

I pay too much rent, and now?

If you think you are paying too much rent, so when the basic rent is above the maximum rent, you can do a rent reduction request.

Step 1: do the rental check on normalhuur.nl.

Step 2: Contact the Hiring team . They come to you for free to check how much you could pay for your room.

Step 3: have your rent checked by the Huurcommissie! This determines what a reasonable rent is. If the rent is too high, you can get the overpaid amount back. The decisions of the Huurcommissie are binding.

If you are looking for accessible and free advice by phone or email before you start a procedure, you can also contact VIDIUS Legal Aid .