Football contribution for her ten -year -old son, repair the coffee maker or have that bike made? After Angela van Hees (42) has paid off all her fixed costs, she has around 200 euros every month. She consciously spends that amount, she says while she prepares rice with courgettes in a curry sauce for her son, with vegetarian balls. The Brabantse is just at home of her work as a planner at a metal company in Boxtel.
Her 10 year old son, whose name she would rather not mention, only comes out just above the table when he sits down at the table, and eats his dinner while looking at a high pile of study books. Because in addition to working full -time, Van Hees studies at the Open University.
On Tuesday 1 July, the day on which landlords can increase rents nationally, her rent would rise by 31.15 euros – 4.5 percent of its current rental price. She looks up to that, because wages in her sector have not increased for a long time. Van Hees: “Everything costs more. The health insurance, telephony, the municipal taxes. Then it goes fast.” She makes separate jars for the MOT inspection, clothing, the hairdresser and birthdays. “Then you just have something left for unexpected expenses, for example if something breaks.”
Van Hees was pleased with a rental freez for this and next year, after the coalition, which then consisted of PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB, announced that it was included in the Spring Memorandum. That plan turned out not to be well thought out and encountered a lot of criticism, especially from housing associations. For tenants, the debate “went in all directions,” says Van Hees. “I wondered: is this going well?”
With the fall of the cabinet, the rental framework was definitely canceled. A line was also set by the ‘shopping bonus’, the PVV plan to increase the rent surcharges.
‘I fall in between’
Because incomes have risen by 5.2 percent on average, a rent increase of 4.5 percent can generally be defended, according to the Nibud Information Institute. As a result, most household types are relatively no more spent on housing costs than a year ago.
But with some households the rent increase arrives harder than with others, Nibud warns. Especially one -parent families at social assistance level and pensioners generally see their income rising less fast and will have more difficulty paying their bills due to a rent increase.
With a net income of 2,765 euros per month, “including gasoline costs,” Van Hees earns less than average, but she is “just not one of those lowest incomes,” she says. Large debts have since been repaid, except for the repayment of her student loan. Her care allowance is minimal at forty euros per year. And because her gross income is just too high, she is not eligible for the sports fund, which pays contributions, tuition fees or sports clothes for families who are tight at Kas, she says. The rent allowance is desperately needed: if she didn’t have it, she could put less money aside for emergencies. “I fall exactly in between everywhere.”
Almost a quarter of the social tenants in a corporation home, in 2024, had (much) effort to pay the housing costs, according to figures from the CBS housing survey of 2024. In the private rental sector that was at least 22 percent.
However, Van Hees’s situation is unique. She calculated that she actually had to get a rent reduction last year, instead of an elevation. The average salary increase was 5.2 percent last year. But Van Hees’ wage increase – 3.25 percent in 2023, 0.6 percent last year – was lagging behind. After months of insistence, her corporation agreed: instead of 692.23 euros per month, Van Hees has been entitled to a basic rent of 650.43 euros per month for 10 months. What she paid too much, she would get back.
In practice, her housing corporation has never introduced that lower amount. In addition, Van Hees received this year again about a rent increase, based on the old, incorrect rent of 692.23 euros. That is why she would have to pay a basic rent of 723.80 euros per month on 1 July – a lot more than the promised 650 euros.
Bailiff
Van Hees refused to pay the difference, not even after the intervention of a bailiff. “The annoying thing is,” she says, “that they have never apologized.”
After asking from NRC The relevant housing corporation has apologized and frozen the rent of Van Hees for the coming year at 650 euros per month. “We found out too late that her calculation was right and not ours. We didn’t do that well,” acknowledges a spokesperson. The corporation says to “regret” the situation and states that it is an exceptional case. “We are helpful and always talk about possible solutions.”
The Woonbond recognizes the image about distant treatment of complaints by housing associations. Due to the growth that corporations went through, the Woonbond sees that tenants end up in customer contact systems faster and get fewer employees. The responsibility to come up with a solution is more often with the tenant than with the corporation, according to the spokesperson.
Van Hees is happy with the outcome of her ‘struggle’, but would never have found out if she was not legally skilled, she thinks. She finds that bad. “I firmly believe that I am not the only one with such experiences and that more people are snowed under by large corporations.”