We’ve heard some truly shocking stories from students,” writes LSVb chair Abdelkader Karbache. “It almost seems like organized crime.” Students have been able to contact the LSVb’s Housing Hotline for the past eight years to seek help with rental issues. Last year, the hotline received a total of 236 inquiries. The proportion of reports about rental scams has grown significantly: from 1.4 percent in 2022 to 9.3 percent in 2024.

International students, in particular, are being targeted. Some transfer thousands of euros as a deposit only to find out that the property was never available for rent at all. Others pay hundreds of euros just to view a room. The number of fake room advertisements also seems to have increased.

Another major problem is that private landlords often fail to refund the deposit when students vacate their rooms. Some students who don’t trust their landlord have come up with a workaround for this: they withhold the last two months’ rent to reclaim their deposit in advance.

Huurteam Eindhoven

In Eindhoven, things are also going seriously wrong. Huurteam (Rental Team) Eindhoven, which cooperates with TU/e, keeps records of all kinds of scams and other malpractices in the Eindhoven housing market. Unfortunately, people searching for housing are still being scammed far too often, states the advisory service in a response. This happens most notably through social media. In 2024, the victims of these practices were exclusively internationals, as far as the Huurteam is aware. In most cases, they are asked to pay a deposit and/or several months’ rent.

Huurteam Eindhoven preventively informed housing seekers about the dangers of renting online through flyers specifically addressing this issue. They also advised all housing seekers, including those affected, about their rights, such as filing a police report and checking the land registry to see whether the landlord actually owns the property in question.

This helped prevent 103 cases of fraud. Still, 59 housing seekers discovered upon arrival in the Netherlands that the property did not exist or only suspected something was wrong after payment. One of the most common practices Huurteam Eindhoven encounters is the repeated rental of an actual existing property. Another one is the advertisement of properties listed on Funda or owned by housing associations as rental properties. AirBnB scams are also common, according to the rental team.

Certification

The LSVb is pleased that students who have questions about their rights can now also turn to rental teams, like in Eindhoven, but says it is unfortunate that, in some municipalities, these teams are less active and not as easy to find.

The union recommends that the Ministry of Housing publish an online overview of rental teams per municipality. These teams should also receive certification, as many organizations currently refer to themselves as rental teams, even though they are not officially recognized as such.

In addition, the LSVb hopes that educational institutions will increase their efforts to inform international students, in particular, about scamming practices on the housing market. And the police should take reports of such practices more seriously, according to the union.