Hotel owner Zuidema was wrongly imposed by the municipality of De Wolden. He received it due to an illegal care and residential location in his building on the Ommerweg between Zuidwolde and Linde. The judge believes the substantiation of these fines is missing.
The hotel owner and the municipality of De Wolden stood before the administrative court in Groningen at the end of February. Zuidema thought he did not have to pay for the illegal practices of a tenant. He mentioned the fines of 5,000 a week, with a maximum of 50,000 euros, disproportionate.
The tenant went bankrupt last year and is no longer in the building. The foundation rented part of the hotel from June 2020. People with a disability were taken care of. The foundation did not have a permit. Because a neighbor in 2021 complained about nuisance at the hotel-restaurant, the illegal reception location came to light.
In May 2023, the landlord received a pre -announcement from the municipality that there would be maintained if the reception was not terminated. The penalty payments flopped a year later at the foundation and the hotel owner. Zuidema did everything to stop these illegal activities, he said.
The hotel owner thought he didn’t have to pay for what the tenant did in his building. The judge thought that Zuidema could not be ignorant. The landlord could have known whether checking that the building was used in violation of a government decision. Zuidema, in particular, did not agree with the height of the penalty payments.
The municipality relied on the seriousness of the violation. After all, there was a nuisance and a local resident did not feel safe. But the judge thinks that further reasons for this was missing. The municipality is given six weeks to make a new decision.