Renting out rooms in Eindhoven: tips and rules

Questioner

My husband and I are planning to buy a house for our son who is studying in Eindhoven. He would like to rent out two unused rooms in that house to his friends (also students). Now we are being told by the municipality that we need a conversion permit for room rental (at 4000 euros). However, it is also possible that this permit will not be granted and our son will not be allowed to rent out the house in part. In that case, we will be 4000 euros poorer and there is no point in continuing with the house purchase. Now we heard from friends who did exactly the same for their son in Utrecht that in this situation there is a question of hospita rental (owner lives in the building and uses > 50% of the house. Only two free rooms are rented). This hospita arrangement is in Utrecht without a permit and without costs! In Nijmegen it appears that even 4 rooms can be rented without a permit. Now our question is: Is this hospital regulation a national legal regulation or is each municipality allowed to draw up its own rules and permits and also charge very different amounts for applying for permits? (conversion permit for rooms Eindhoven 4000 euros, Utrecht +/-900 euros, Nijmegen +/-400 euros!) Are there any national laws for this and if so, can we do something with them? We would really like to buy a house for our son but not for him alone, then it would be too expensive.

Lawyer

There are 2 different things at play. Hospita rental (a national regulation) can only be the case if your son becomes the owner of the house. Another thing is that permits may be required for room rental. These rules can indeed differ per municipality. This is my specialization. Feel free to contact me without obligation for more information.

Lawyer

Day, The above is incorrect. a landlady does not have to be the owner of the house, she can also be a main tenant. In that case a contract must be drawn up of the possibility of subletting rooms to students and a specific contract between your son and the students. I can draw these up for you.

Lawyer

Sorry, that should not have been 'owner', but 'main tenant'. However, that does not change the fact that permits may be required, which varies per municipality. Rental agreements are a concern for later.

Lawyer

The municipality of Eindhoven has determined the following, so that you are indeed at risk. The only solution is to buy subject to actually obtaining the permit. I can help you with the purchase agreement. You can, however, obtain more certainty through a preliminary consultation/concept application (http://www.eindhoven.nl/producten/Vooroverlegconceptaanvraag-omgevingsvergunning.htm). http://www.eindhoven.nl/producten/Kamerverhuur-Omgevingsrechten.htm: When do I need a permit for room rental? If an independent residential unit (home) is converted into non-independent residential units (rooms), an environmental permit is required for the conversion activity in the following situations: When rooms are rented to two people and the owner also lives in this property; When rooms are rented to three or more people (where the owner does not live in the property). Even if a room rental permit has already been issued for the property in question in the past, or if the room rental started in a period in which this was not subject to a permit but an independent home was converted into non-independent living spaces at some point, an environmental permit must (still) be applied for for this conversion. Room occupancy is in conflict with most Eindhoven zoning plans, because they define a dwelling as: a complex of spaces, exclusively intended for housing one individual household. Developments in case law have led to the municipality not being able to consider a group of students or foreign workers as one household. If you want to rent out rooms in conflict with the zoning plan, we will also assess whether we want to cooperate. The criteria for this are based on the parking situation and the quality of living. The parking standard must be met. In addition, based on the permanent code of conduct for quality of living, the individual rooms must have a minimum surface area. If there is no shared living room, the rooms must be at least 14 m². If there is a shared living room, the surface area must be at least 10 m² per room. Different criteria apply for the assessment of the viability and the zoning plan. If the outcome of either assessment is negative, no environmental permit will be granted for the conversion of a home into a room rental property. This means that in that case no rooms may be rented out.

Lawyer

Day, So, an exemption from the current zoning plan is simply possible. Incidentally, most rooms are rented out in violation of provisions from zoning plans. You can accept the risk, like most room renters, or apply for the exemption at the municipal government. An advantage of this is of course the sustainability and legality.

Lawyer

There is no 'simply' exemption possible. It just depends, as you can read on the links I gave you. I can certainly not recommend you to work clandestinely. The tenants want to register at the address in question because of their student finance etc., so the municipality will quickly find out. I would be happy to help you with this if you want. Please feel free to contact me without obligation.

Lawyer

Day, No permit is required in designated areas Woensel-west; Limbeek, north and south; Bennekel east; Doornakkers east and west. And also not if the house was rented out room by room before December 12, 2007. This information can be found on the following link http://www.eindhoven.nl/producten/Kamerverhuur-omgevingsvergunning.htm

Questioner

Dear Monique and Monique and other interested parties, Thank you very much for both of your answers. We have now contacted several people (municipality, district coordinator, selling brokers, purchasing broker and financial advisor). The issue is quite complicated and it has become very clear to us that the municipality of Eindhoven discourages room rental very much and makes it difficult and expensive. Obtaining a permit does indeed depend on many factors. An important one is the parking standard and almost all old houses do not meet that. Simply because in the past (pre-war houses!) few parking spaces were made at houses. The fact that students in particular hardly ever need these parking spaces does not matter... The other tricky rule is the liveability in the neighbourhood. That is the most logical one because students are often not quiet, neat residents. That rule is tested by the neighbourhood coordinator as soon as a permit application has been made. If there are already too many student houses in a street/neighbourhood, no permit will be issued. Logical, but it would be very useful if the municipality would then draw up an extensive list of streets where you cannot get a permit for that reason. They have now done this for 4 neighbourhoods (mentioned in the last comment). In these neighbourhoods you will NOT get a permit anyway. In all other neighbourhoods room rental is still possible but there is no way to find out whether you will get such a permit. Applying for a preliminary consultation (at €1250) is an option but if the answer is no you will be out €1250 and you can continue looking, if the answer is 'yes, there are possibilities' then your actual permit application (at €4000) can still be rejected. And then you are now €5250 poorer and still without a house with a permit..... Then there is one more option: buying an existing student house of which you can prove that it was already rented out as rooms before December 2007. If that is the case but you cannot prove it (because it was illegally rented out as rooms, for example), then you will not receive a permit unless you go through the above procedure (with costs) in full and are lucky enough to be given a new permit. There is no one who can tell you anything about the chance of a permit (there are no known statistics) and we have also not found any ways to find out which houses are for sale where rooms are already being rented out (usually student houses), which makes option 3 very difficult. What remains: - renting out rooms illegally, but we don't like that idea - just let our son look for a room to rent himself again - buy an apartment and sublet a room, because that is allowed without a permit We hope to save other people a lot of searching. Incidentally, these are really Eindhoven rules. In Nijmegen you can simply rent out a maximum of 4 rooms without a permit. In Utrecht you can rent out a maximum of 2 rooms via the hospita regulation (provided that the hospita/main tenant has at least 50% of the home for her own use). In Eindhoven you may sublet a maximum of one room. Good luck everyone!

Lawyer

Good that you write this here. And it is, as I wrote before, certainly not advisable to rent illegally, because that always ends up with serious consequences.