No evictions during the COVID CRISIS!
Date: March 26, 2020
Modified November 14, 2023
Written by: Jeroen Brinkman
Reading time: +/- 2 minutes
Date: March 26, 2020
Modified November 14, 2023
Written by: Jeroen Brinkman
Reading time: +/- 2 minutes
It was announced today, as indicated by several news reports, that evictions will not be allowed in the coming period. Where there are expiring housing leases, tenants are not supposed to leave the rental property. This because of the outbreak of the corona crisis. Agreements on this have been made with various landlord organizations, such as the Aedes sector association, IVBN, Kences and Vastgoed Belang.
The minister says there will be an emergency law to extend temporary leases during the crisis. Under the law, the temporary rental contracts currently in place cannot be extended. If a temporary housing rental contract does get extended, the contract is no longer temporary. It will be for an indefinite period. Thus, a permanent rental contract is created.
With the emergency law, the minister apparently wants to prevent tenants from being forced to leave because a temporary lease expires and a landlord does not dare to renew it. Whether the emergency law also takes into account situations where leases end that were not temporary remains to be seen. It is important to get in touch as landlord and tenant when such a situation arises. Perhaps the law also provides for situations where a tenant can no longer pay the rent on time.
Until the emergency law is in place, it is also important for landlords and tenants to consult. If a landlord wants to give notice that a temporary lease is ending, do so. Refer to the Emergency Act and agree, for example, that, in anticipation of this, the temporary lease will be extended due to the exceptional and unique circumstances. But also emphatically point out that this does not mean, that after the extended period a right to rent protection has arisen.
Name the exceptional circumstances resulting from the COVID crisis. Of course, it may be that a particular tenant does want to leave by himself, in which case there is obviously no problem. But if a tenant does not want to leave, even though the leased property has already been leased to another tenant as of a certain effective date, then there may be problems. In those cases, a notice will usually have already been given, that the temporary housing lease will end. We are curious as to whether the emergency law also provides for those situations. In those cases, it could be argued that the tenant should already have taken the end of the lease into account. It is hard to see, why in those cases a tenant would be allowed to continue renting.
The tenant must also, of course - still - abide by the obligations that apply to a tenant. For example, a tenant may not cause a nuisance or engage in criminal activity. The moment a tenant fails in these matters, this is not a reason to enforce the tenant. In fact, the tenant then has it in his or her own hands that the agreement will still end. If a tenant is temporarily unable to pay the rent, in view of the corona crisis, force majeure will soon be involved. But in such a case even a judge will rule that in view of the special circumstances an eviction by the tenant is out of the question.
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