The Affordable Rent Act, the Housing Valuation System for Non-self-contained Units (WWSO) and the WWS were adopted by the Senate today and will take effect on July 1, 2024. The Affordable Rent Act ensures that the WWSO and the WWS become mandatory.
The new WWSO is an important milestone for student housing in the Netherlands! The WWSO, which dates from 1979, was severely outdated. This made construction and rental, but also the sustainability of rooms in existing properties, loss-making.
The new WWSO ensures more realistic rents for rooms with shared facilities. The new WWSO thus helps to maintain and build the non-independent rooms. It also becomes more possible to make non-self-contained rooms more sustainable.
In addition to the bill, a motion was also adopted that a number of obligations under the Good Landlordship Act will only come into effect on January 1, 2025: adding the points count to the rental agreement, the prohibition on setting a maximum reasonable rent higher than the WWS(O) handling and enforcement by municipalities.
This means that a landlord is only obliged to provide a completed points count at the start of the rental agreement from 1 January 2025 and that the municipality can only enforce this from 1 January 2025.
Rooms with shared facilities improve the well-being of students, research shows. From the perspective of student welfare, rooms are therefore preferable to studios.
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