I built a tool to check if your landlord owes you money (among other things)
A while ago I saw the stat that around 1 in 2 renters are overcharged for their home, which absolutely amazed me. It put me on a quest to build a tool specifically for expats and foreign students to check if their landlord is overcharging them (because we all love getting one over on a 'huisjesmelker'). I found the official Huurcommissie website to be pretty complicated and a bad experience to use.
As I was working on it, I decided it needed to do more than just calculate maximum rent to set it apart from similar sites, so I integrated several other tools as well and I've linked to the sources for all statements (the applicable laws and such) wherever I can.
On my site, DutchRentCheck.nl, you can use the following six tools for free:
- Check if you are overpaying for your rent (both for 'independent dwellings' (mostly expats) as well as 'shared rooms' (mostly students)
- Check if your deposit is not above the legal limit
- Calculate if your landlord isn't increasing your rent above the legal cap
- See if your landlord isn't screwing you on service costs
- Demand letter generator to create letters in Dutch that you can send to your landlord with all information generated as you type.
On top of that there are guides and a glossary explaining the basics of the rules as well as a glossary that translates the most commonly used Dutch terms into English.
The math should all be correct for the different calculations, but of course there is a small chance I made a mistake somewhere. If I did, please reach out to me and I will fix it. Please also let me know if I messed up in any other way as well, I'm happy to take any advice or suggestions for changes or add-ons.
FYI, all calculations are done in your browser, no data about rent and such gets sent to a server so I will never see any of that. The only that I collect is Google Analytics, and that can be declined as per GDPR.
If one of my tools has helped you save money, please consider donating to keep it going.
PS: As is mentioned on several occasions on the website, the website does provide official legal advice and it's always good to check with Stichting Woon and/or the Huurcommissie, but I think as a first check this is a way better option than the convoluted Huurcommissie tool.