Housing Minister Mona Keijzer wants to encourage the comeback of student lodgings with a change in the law: residents who are selling their home must be able to terminate the rental contract with a student. She wants this to be subject to a “reasonable notice period”.

With such a legislative amendment, Keijzer would be removing an important obstacle to offering student lodgings. At the moment, homeowners often do not get permission from their mortgage provider for this. Financiers fear that a student tenant will simply continue to live in a house after it’s sold, making the home more difficult to sell.

Keijzer is planning to present a first version to the public soon. This is part of her written reply to questions by the NSC parliamentary group in the House of Representatives.

Permission

Due to the urgent housing shortage, the government wants to create sixty thousand student homes in the coming years. Partly by building them, but also by making better use of the existing offering, for example through student lodgings. Based on previous research, Keijzer believes there are around a hundred thousand households that may be willing and able to help by renting out a room in their home.

But in addition to mortgage providers, some housing associations also have misgivings about this. The minister has agreed with twelve of these associations that they will experiment with permitting subletting for students. That permission is ultimately intended to become the norm.

Welfare benefit

Also, for people on welfare it’s not very attractive to offer student lodgings: what they earn from renting out a room at one end, is deducted from their benefit at the other.

NSC wanted to know if the minister is planning to help these people. Can an exemption be introduced for this rental income, so the welfare benefit decreases less or not at all? That’s something that Keijzer doesn’t intend to do. The welfare benefit has to be low enough to motivate people to find a better-paying job, is the government’s reasoning. If welfare benefit recipients earn money by renting out a room, the chances of them looking for a job are smaller, the minister thinks.

Tax exemption

She is looking at a higher tax exemption for landlords. Households currently don’t pay tax on the first six thousand euros they earn from renting out a room, but because room prices are rising, it may be possible to increase the tax exemption.

And then there’s the problem that housing associations can increase the rent of people who earn more. As far as NSC is concerned, the income from renting out a room shouldn’t factor into the calculation of these rent increases. Keijzer agrees and is discussing with the housing associations how she can turn this into a rule.