Do some rental real estate agents in The Netherlands have an integrity problem?

Imagine; your employer is sending you abroad, but in this time of recession it is almost impossible to sell your house. You decide to rent it out and because you want to protect yourself you hire a rental real estate agent to make sure that you have a trustworthy tenant in your home.

For more and more home-owners in The Netherlands this decision ends in a nightmare.

“Anyone’ in The Netherlands with means of transportation and a cell phone can become a rental real estate agent. In stead of 3000 agents, what is more than enough to cover the rental housing market, The Netherlands has now more than 10.000 rental agents. The competition is really fierce and because there is no regulation what so ever, the chance for making mistakes is enormous.

The agents are so eager for making the deal and collecting the fees from both parties (what is by the way not allowed by Dutch law) that a lot of times proper inquiries of the potential tenant is lacking.

Even if the real estate agent discovers during the verification of the paperwork of the potential tenant that some documents are not correct or missing mandatory information (income/employer documents), the real estate agent “will take the risk”. Unfortunately the outcome of that risk is for the home-owner. Because the rental real estate agent is “only” the mediator and therefore not a part of the rental agreement is it very difficult to hold the agent responsible.

There are some real estate agents who will do everything to avoid the responsibilities. Some frequently surfacing examples are Housing Agency DIRECT WONEN, a subsidiary of Qmulus, WijWonen and EHR Arnhem. The victims of those agencies ended up in court.

The problem is that most of victimized home owners do not have the deep pockets to go to court. In The Netherlands you have to pay all your court costs, lawyers, etc. upfront. This is in addition to the damage the tenant has done to your house, missing rental income and going to court to end the rental agreement with the tenant.
Many home owners do not have access to such an amount of money. That means that a lot of them will take there losses or worse, go bankrupt

The few home owners who can afford it to take the real estate agent to court find themselves in another nightmare. The real estate agents will delay the court procedures as much as possible and financing lawyers is for them, as a company, a lot cheaper then for the private home owner.
The real estate agent tries to prolong the court proceedings as long as possible with the intention that the home owner is not able to afford the costs any longer and/or find it emotional impossible to keep going.

For many expats and home owners this is a big injustice. A few victimized private home-owners decided to do something about this and organized themselves as TWITTER account @foutemakelaar.
The response was and still is overwhelming. Many victims have come forward and we have the support of Dutch media and politician Paulus Jansen.

Our goal is to regulate the rental housing market. This means monitoring of the rental real estate agents, continuous education and an independent commission to deal with any conflict which arises between the agent and her clients. In stead of going to court all the conflicts can be dealt with in a more inexpensive and timely manner.

To read more “horror” stories or to get more information, go to the following links:

http://joepderksen.blogspot.com/search?q=rental

http://community.expatica.com/forums/topic/46948/my-house-was-trashed-beware-of-agents

http://www.rnw.nl/nederlands/article/huis-als-expat-verhuren-kan-je-leven-verpesten#comment-126597

http://www.depers.nl/economie/622691/Huurders-met-een-luchtje.html

If you have a similar experience or know someone who has dealt or is still dealing with a rental real estate agent who placed a criminal/con-artist in your home please let us know.

We are very interested to hear what other private home owners have done to solve the problem and what kind of help they have had. We noticed that in the most cases the vctims are on their own. The police is very reluctant to make a report of the crime, the employer who has sent you abroad is most of the times ignorant and of course their is the rental real estate agent who refuses to take the responsibility or help you in any other way.

You can either send your reaction to this website or go to twitter account @foutemakelaar.

Thank you for your input.