'More and more students looking for housing are being ripped off,' says LSVb

‘We are extremely shocked by the stories students have told us,’ writes LSVb chair Abdelkader Karbache. ’It almost seems like organised crime.’ For the past eight years, LSVb has had a Housing Hotline to support students with rental issues. Last year, the hotline received 236 questions. According to the student union, the number of reports about housing scams has grown from 1.4 percent in 2022 to 9.3 percent in 2024.

International students are particularly affected by the problem. Some pay thousands of euros in deposits only to find out that the place is not available for rent, while others pay hundreds of euros just to be allowed to view a room. The number of fake advertisements for rooms seems to have increased as well.

Deposit
Another major complaint is that private landlords usually do not refund the deposit when students leave their rooms. Some students do not trust their landlords, to the point of now paying the last two months' rent just so they can get their deposit back. 

LSVb is pleased that students who have questions about their rights can also contact rental teams now but regrets that these teams are less active and harder to find in certain municipalities.

Quality mark
The association advises the Ministry of Housing to publish an online overview of rental teams per municipality. They should also be given a quality mark because many organisations call themselves rental teams when they are anything but. Utrecht also has a rental team.

Moreover, LSVb hopes that educational institutions will do a better job of informing their international students about housing market scams. Last but not least, the association finds that the police should take reports of such scams more seriously.