Rental Law: Signing a Contract in Bad Housing?

Questioner

About 5 weeks ago I had a viewing for a rental property. This lasted about 2 minutes. I thought the property looked neat, except that it was a mess because of the move. However, it turned out that the property had a lot of damage and all the damaged areas were made invisible by putting furniture and boxes etc. in front of it. 4 weeks ago I signed the rental contract, because I believed that the condition of the house would be good, because the real estate agent promises that the house meets all requirements upon delivery. (Like no holes in the walls etc.) The contract also states that I sign for the condition of the house upon delivery, which was only a week later. But if I had seen the condition then I would never have signed the contract. The house does not meet the requirements at all: electrical sockets are loose, a large part of the wooden floor is out, there is a crack of 2 meters high and 1 cm wide in the wall, water pipes are loose, there are gigantic holes in the walls, and so on... I immediately contacted the broker to say that I wanted to get out of the contract, but they said that unfortunately this is only possible after a year. Because I signed for a year, after that it can be cancelled monthly. The inspection of the house before the transfer was literally nothing, this can be seen from the extremely bad condition of the house. I think they ignored the requirements because I had already signed for the condition of the house. This way the landlord can continue to cash in, because if the property had to be repaired, they would have lost many months of rent. I feel very ripped off, I would like to get out of this crooked contract and would like my money back. What are my rights / options?

Lawyer

An agreement is concluded by an offer that is accepted. But an agreement that is concluded under the influence of error is voidable. This must then concern a situation in which the agreement would not have been concluded if there had been a correct representation of the facts. Error can arise from incorrect information or too little information. The party that has made a mistake can annul the legal act that led to the agreement, pursuant to article 6: 228 of the Dutch Civil Code. Also, there is a duty to report and a duty to investigate. Legally, the duty to report takes precedence over the duty to investigate. So the landlord/agent should have informed you of all this first.