Can I live in social housing despite owning a house?

Questioner

Dear people, I would like to ask a question via this fantastic initiative that I heard about from several people, how great that you exist! I have the following situation. I live in a paid-off house that my father bought for me almost 11 years ago, and where we made use of the possibility to be able to donate without limit by a parent who has not lived in the Netherlands for more than 10 years. The idea was that the house is a kind of advanced inheritance for me; it is therefore also in my name and I have no mortgage. But after living here for a long time, I am currently looking for a residential group to live in, and those rooms are almost always social housing. I am in the paradoxical situation that I am allowed to live in social housing based on my income (I earn below the limit), but that I do own that house. My plan would be to rent out my own house, but not necessarily for a very high amount (I prefer to help people with a smaller budget to be able to continue living in Amsterdam). If I understand correctly, the value of the house then shifts to equity in box 3 - the last WOZ value of the house is €314,000, and in addition to that I now have approximately €50,000 in my own savings account, but since I am self-employed that is my only security, safety net, pension etc. And apparently, when checking for social housing, equity is not taken into account. That would mean that despite that equity/house I would still be allowed to live in social housing, because my income is low enough for that. Because it seems so strange that this is indeed allowed, I was hoping to be able to ask you whether this is indeed correct? Or am I missing something? It seems that the equity is only considered for receiving rent allowance, which would not be possible, but that seems fair to me :) Thank you very much in advance for your help! Kind regards,

Lawyer

It is true that when obtaining social housing, only your income is taken into account and not your savings or equity. You just have to take into account that when determining your income, investment income (rental income from your home) must also be included.