How to get rental security deposits back
In recent years, the Shallow Man has regularly heard stories about how some Dutch landlords come up with the most incredible excuses to keep their hands on the rental security deposits of their expat tenants.
The purpose of rental security deposits
The norm in the Netherlands is that as a tenant you’ll pay two or even three months rent as a deposit. The security deposit is the money that you pay prior to moving in and should get back after you move out. The purpose of this money is to protect the landlord in case you damage the apartment or leave owing rent. It’s not, however, a cash bonus for the landlord (or landlady) to spend on pepernoten, bitterballen, brown shoes or black leather jackets.
Which brings me to the subject of today’s post, how to get your rental security deposit back from a greedy landlord.
Pinocchio was a great landlord but told a few lies to try and keep rental security deposits
Rental security deposits an expats tale
Recently, the Shallow Man received a message from an expat reader that made me laugh and cry.
“Dear Shallowman, I’ve been renting a studio apartment for over two years. I never had any problems with the landlord, but now that I’ve moved out, he’s refusing to return a large part of my deposit”.
I followed up with the reader and confirmed his situation which was as follows:
- He was renting a 45 square meter apartment
- His cleaner spent three hours on his last day in the apartment cleaning up
So imagine his surprise when the landlord sent him the following (handwritten) breakdown of costs.
Move over Charles Dickens
The hand written invoice above is surely one of the greatest works of fiction in history. Forget Dickens, Shelly or Keats, here we have a piece of literature that is also incredibly poetic. As well as charging the tenant for maintenance of the boiler, which is usually the responsibility of the landlord, not the tenant, the owner claims that it took him 18 hours to clean a 45 square meter apartment!
The landlord took great care in cleaning the apartment
Eighteen hours to clean an apartment
Upon reading the bill, the Shallow Man was immediately flooded with guilt. I pay my cleaner for four hours work for cleaning an apartment of 110 square meters. Obviously, I’m not allowing her enough time to clean properly. She really needs to spend a minimum of 36 hours based on the time claimed by the landlord. Nor am I paying her enough as the landlord charged an eye-watering 25 euros an hour for cleaning services. The collective labor agreement in the Netherlands for cleaners is 12.44 euros per hour.
Rot op and good luck
The expat had rented the apartment via an agency. When he complained about the bill he received from the landlord, they claimed that the cleaning costs are completely normal. The landlord refused to change anything in the bill and was even kind enough to advise the expat to take legal action, but warned him that the cost of taking him to court would be a lot more than the amount he was losing from the deposit.
Jouw deposit, mijn vakantiegeld
How to get rental security deposits back
In desperation, the expat reached out to the Shallow Man. I suggested the following:
- Talk to the agency and tell them that if they refuse to assist with the return of the deposit that the story including the name of the agency will be published on various expat social media, including my site
- Make an appointment with your local Citizens Advice BureauxÂ
- Write a message detailing your objections to any claims by the landlord on your rental security deposit. Print it out and send it by registered post. (Obviously, PostNL might not deliver it, but it’s worth trying)
- In the letter demand that the landlord returns the deposit within five working days or you’ll start legal action
- Make sure that the agent is aware that you’ll publish details of your complaint on Google Reviews, their Facebook page etc. Apply as much pressure as possible
The outcome of this story and some additional tips
The expat in question took my advice and has managed to agree a financial settlement with the agency and the landlord. My advice to expats new to the Netherlands looking to rent apartments is:
- Check the Google Review and Facebook ratings of any agency you’ll be working with
- It’s illegal for an agent to charge a months rent as a fee for placing you in an apartment. The landlord has to pay this.
- When moving into an apartment take a detailed inventory and ask the landlord/agent to sign this
No cleaning ladies were hurt during the writing of this post.
Until next time, “be grateful that you’re allowed to live here and stop complaining!”
Thank you. I am an expat and rented an apartment last year. This year I changed my apartment and got to experience each bit of what you narrated in your article. I became the victim of the rental agency ‘Goeth Vastgoed’, Eindhoven.
I had cleaned the apartment myself before moving out just except the kitchen chimney filter. There were three small stains on the three walls of the apartment caused by me which could have been easily fixed and never needed whole repaint of the whole apartment. Since I had cleaned the apartment myself for whatever it was possible hence I knew that even if they would clean the apartment, it wont take them more than 1 hour.
The rental agency (Goeth Vastgoed, Eindhoven) did post inspection without me (due to corona virus) and wrote whatever they wanted in the post inspection report( they wrote apartment was very dirty, walls were ‘damaged’, etc). They mentioned several things in the report that were not caused by me and which were there when I had rented the apartment. Also they never gave me any chance or time to fix these spots on the walls. When I objected to their baseless inspection report and asked them to provide before-and-after pictures of their baseless damage claims, they sent me pictures which again proved my point only that only things caused by me were i) unclean kitchen chimney filter, and ii) three spots on the three walls. Even after me repeatedly asking them to prove how the apartment was dirty and how the walls were ‘damaged’, they did not send me any clarifications and finally sent me invoice of 847 euros (cleaning of 8.5 hours and repaint of whole apartment). I was shocked to see these invoices. Without sending any pictures or proof about why there was a need to clean the apartment for ‘8.5 hours’ and why there was a need to repaint the whole apartment, they happily carried out these two things and charged them on me. I already sent them a legal letter from a lawyer but they shamelessly rejected all the pleas again ‘without’ providing any proof or pictures of why they needed to clean for 8.5 hours and why they needed to repaint the whole apartment. I am going ahead with my next legal actions but in the mean time also posting my reviews wherever possible to warn other expats against this agency.
Getting back into this battle soon on my third house in this country. On them first house they took every eurocent. One of the claims was 200 euro for a ‘broken chandelier’. I asked for proof and they sent me a photo of a single piece of glass that a sweet elderly man in aN anthem tweed hands had given my child. It was left on the shelf in the house. The carpet was immaculate and they could not find stains so they sent me ultraviolet lit photographs of the carpet and said they revealed ‘hidden marks’.
They wanted to redecorate at our expense and I regret so much threat I spent days cleaning and had the curtains and carpets professionally done. We even fixed and improved things. Our makelaar said it was the best clean he had ever seen.
The second time I received back the whole deposit bar a small amount that I thought helped our landlord save face. he was so determined to find something that I let him! Again, the house was immaculate.
This time I am considering withholding rent. Our landlords have not uphold any of their end of the agreement in two years. All false promises and lies. They left the tenant before us in tears and kept her two months rent. As we are leaving the country and they know we will be unable to pursue it I can see it is the only route. I don’t feel great about it but two makelaars and all of my Dutch friends advise this action.
Thank you. I always Paid the rent early and this place is Cleaner Than when I got it. Ton of problems like no hot Water (one day one next day off) With a while slew of appointment and „contractors for about the first 6 months. Light blinking like in the movie psycho 24/7 hanging wires no fixtures at all when first came in. Shower flooded constantly because the contractor hadnt installed drain it correctly. First inspection woman looked at almost nothing and declared that 2 rooms needed repainting. Their reccomended contractor would only do 1 coat and charged 400 EUROS more Than all the other rooms – plus he measured the shabby shedding living room walks suffering worse and worse From creeping damp. He Just assumed he was doing the job and was taken aback when I said I had gotten Three other estimates. The landlord Has a bad reputation on the whole block and Has given Me zero reasons to trust – thank you for this thread!
Great advice! We expats need all the help we can get with so many trying to take advantage of us here. I would also add, most importantly, never rent from an attorney/advocaten like we mistakenly did. Ours got away with half of our 5,000 deposit and we left the flat cleaner than when we moved in. We even paid a relocation company to assist in the handover of keys and they said it was one the dirtiest flats they had ever seen but when we moved out they would no longer get involved to help recoup our full deposit.
36 hours??? That’s NOTHING! And only 25 euro??? What a steal! My landord took 50 hours at 30 euro an hour which adds up to just about the entire deposit.
about to embark on a legal battle with my landlord. timely article.
Best of luck.