Thousands of students might be renting their rooms illegally, through no fault of their own.
The Eindhoven City Council is going to investigate 1,400 premises. A lot of students use these for accommodation. The landlords either don’t have the correct licenses or none at all.
This practice has come to light after the municipality did an inventory. That was done after new policy rules came into effect in late 2109. These are on renting out and splitting up houses.
These regulations stipulate that student houses may not be within a 30m radius of each other. That’s to prevent the occupants from causing a nuisance in certain neighbourhoods.
Only 40% could get permits
The council expects that of these thousands of questionable premises, less than half could be eligible for permits. Those amount to some 40%. The remaining 60% – 850 sites – won’t be able to be rented out anymore.
The Municipal Board wants to extend the transitional arrangement for some of these places. That’s for the 550 buildings that will be allowed to rent out rooms. This isn’t a solution for the other 850 premises.
The council assumes an average of two rented rooms per property. They base that on occupation records. That amounts to about 1,700 improperly rented rooms. It’s mostly students that rent these.
Only once the council’s investigation is complete will it become clear if this figure tallies. Will thousands of students no longer have accommodation? But one thing’s clear. This development increases the pressure on the municipality to build more (student) accommodation in short order.
Source: Studio040
Translator: Melinda Walraven
