For some time now, private landlords and housing corporations have been obliged to report to the municipality if a tenant has rent arrears. What does this notification obligation entail and does it have consequences for the landlord if this notification is not made?

Early signalling

This so-called ‘early signalling’ of debts has become a task for municipalities from the entry into force of the Municipal Debt Assistance Decree in 2021. Municipalities will thus get a timely picture of people in debt and can actively offer debt assistance and prevent eviction.

Roadmap

According to the aforementioned decree, every landlord has to pursue a social collection policy and follow a step-by-step plan when rent arrears occur. This step-by-step plan involves the following: .

1. The landlord should make personal contact with the tenant about the possibilities of preventing arrears;
2. The landlord should make the tenant aware of debt relief options;
3. The landlord should send at least one written reminder about the arrears. This should include offering a payment plan and also offering to pass on the tenant's personal details to the municipality, with the tenant's written consent, so that the tenant can receive assistance in resolving the arrears;
4. The landlord reports to the municipality.

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Tenant response

In case the attempts at personal contact have failed and the tenant does not respond to the offer of help, the landlord is obliged to make a notification to the municipality. The fact that the tenant must give written consent to this is prescribed by the decree but this is not a hard requirement. However, it is wise to include in the letter to the tenant that if there is no response, his details will be passed on to the municipal debt relief agency. If the tenant explicitly objects to this, the data may not be passed on and early signalling will stop. The landlord may then take measures against the tenant.

However, it is then advisable to confirm the tenant's objection in writing, so that in the event that proceedings do become necessary, it can be demonstrated that the step-by-step plan has been followed.

Assistance

Once the notification is made, the municipality must make an offer of help within four weeks. During this period, no legal action may be taken by the landlord. If help has been accepted, the landlord will be told. If no notice is received from the municipality after 4 weeks then the landlord can resume any legal action. However, the rule of thumb is that there must be a rent arrears of at least 3 months to claim dissolution and eviction.

Sanction

However, many landlords are unaware that a notification must be made to the municipality. The regulations do not provide for a sanction for landlords who do not fulfil their notification obligation. The landlord retains the option of seeking dissolution of the lease and payment of arrears. However, case law does show that the landlord runs the risk that a request for dissolution will be rejected if the notification obligation is not fulfilled.

After the obligation to report was introduced, this obligation was initially tested strictly. Thereafter, dissolution was more often granted because either the accumulation of rent arrears could not have been prevented by the early notification or because the tenant himself had not presented any special circumstances that justified rejection of the dissolution.

At the moment, it will depend on the circumstances of the case whether a request for dissolution and eviction will be rejected on the grounds of failure to comply with the notification obligation. What matters here is whether following the step-by-step plan would have resulted in the rent arrears not rising further.

For example, the Court of Zeeland-West Brabant (ECLI:NL:RBZWB:2024:4742) rejected in June 2024 granted the rent arrears. However, the application for dissolution was rejected:

“In this case, the subdistrict court must assess whether it should dissolve the lease under Article 6:265(1) of the Civil Code (BW). To do so, the subdistrict court must assess whether there is a shortcoming and, if so, whether there are circumstances that make that the shortcoming in this case does not justify dissolution of the lease with its consequences. For this, of all the circumstances of the case are important (cf. HR 28 September 2018, ECLI:NL:HR:2018:1810).

(Nature and seriousness of) breach
It is not in dispute between the parties that there is rent arrears and that these amount to €2,487.56, so that the subdistrict court assumes this. This establishes that there is a serious shortcoming which, in view of the size of the rent arrears, should in principle lead to dissolution of the lease.

Other circumstances
However, the Subdistrict Court held that in this case, in light of the following circumstances and considering the mutual interests of the parties, dissolution of the lease was not justified.

The administrator correctly argued that Clavis had not fulfilled its obligations as landlord arising from the Municipal Debt Relief Decree. That regulation aims to identify debts at an early stage and offer people assistance in doing so, in order to prevent those debts from mounting (even more), as happened in this case. Clavis did not report the accumulated rent arrears to the municipality until 25 January 2024. That was only five days prior to the summons and several years after substantial rent arrears had already arisen. It is plausible that the rent arrears would not have risen as high if Clavis had already reported them in 2021, when there was no protection order. Although Clavis states that it had already made a notification in 2021 with regard to [interested party], it merely refers to the applicable procedure for that purpose. In the absence of concrete substantiation of its assertion, Clavis cannot therefore be followed in that regard.

Furthermore, in this case the current rent has already been paid as of mid-2023 and there is a concrete budget plan with room for a monthly repayment of the rent arrears, while [interested party], in view of his other personal circumstances, also has a substantial interest in keeping the house. To this end, the trustee argued, without contradiction, that [interested party] had returned to work, that counselling had already been started which [interested party] accepted and that divorce proceedings were pending, in which visitation arrangements for [interested party]'s two minor children would have to be arranged. The interest of these children, who are expected to regularly spend weekends with their father, also weighs in here and contributes to the conclusion that dissolution of the lease is not justified in this case.”

Furthermore, the Rotterdam court published 2024 policy agreements which assume that landlords will comply with the notification requirement. This should also be made clear in the summons. Landlords from that region would therefore do well to act in accordance with the policy agreements.

Conclusion

Given the above, not filing a notification is not without risk. It is therefore important for landlords to act more actively when rent arrears arise, comply with the notification obligation and then not wait too long with summonses.

If you want to know more or when you need advice on the notification obligation or your renatl contract, please feel free to contact one of our lawyers without any obligation. We will be happy to assist you.