Coalition parties VVD and D66 are against Housing Minister Hugo de Jonge’s plan to let municipalities prioritize locals for affordable existing owner-occupied homes. Such prioritization is justifiable for rentals or brand new homes but goes too far when it comes to existing owned homes, they said, NOS reports.
The Netherlands will ban temporary leases, with a few exceptions, and make permanent home rental contracts the norm again. An initiative bill to this effect from PvdA and the coalition party ChristenUnie got majority support in the Tweede Kamer. The initiative was hanging by a threat because of two controversial changes VVD and CDA wanted to implement to increase the number of exceptions.
Tenants lose out if their landlord is allowed to kick them out if they want to sell their property or have a family member live in it, say the PvdA and ChristenUnie. MPs from these parties do not think much of the "destructive amendments" tabled by the VVD and CDA after the debate on the issue. "If the Kamer were to accept these amendments, this would have far-reaching consequences for legal rent protection in the Netherlands, compared to the current practice," Henk Nijboer of the PvdA and Pieter Grinwis of coalition party ChristenUnie wrote in a letter to the Tweede Kamer.