Keeping a rental home when emigrating - Important tips

Questioner

I will soon be emigrating to Scandinavia for 4 years, can I keep my rental home in the Netherlands? Can I deregister from the Dutch municipality where I live in that case? If not, will that have any consequences?

Lawyer

If it is not social housing, it is not stated in the rental contract that you have to live there, you ensure that the house and garden are well maintained and you do not sublet the house, then there is a good chance that the landlord cannot take action against the non-occupation of the house. If you emigrate to Scandinavia, you must deregister with the municipality. If you do not do this, there are not many consequences yet. However, your formal residential address will remain your rental home and tax papers etc. will still be sent to that address. At the moment, there are considerations for imposing a fine for providing incorrect information, but that has not yet been done. However, you may get into trouble in Scandinavia because I assume that you want to register there, even if it is only for health insurance, for example. You will then still have to indicate what your last residential address was. So you will probably get into trouble in Scandinavia and that is why I do not understand why you do not want to deregister unless you want to illegally sublet the house without the landlord's permission. That is definitely not advisable because that is almost always not allowed in the rental contract. If it comes out, you run the risk that not only the rental will be terminated but also that you have to pay damages to the landlord.