Social housing fraud and illegal tenancies: a major problem in Amsterdam

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Financieele Dagblad said Wednesday that 10 to 20% of the rent-controlled properties owned by large housing companies in Amsterdam could be sublet illegally.

A total of 186,000 properties in the capital are reserved for low-income households, and research by the newspaper shows that tens of thousands of official tenants could commit fraud.

The Publications and Research Research Group, Decisive Facts, looked at advertisements on the popular Kamernet rental site and compared them to the company's housing stock. It was found that a large number of business houses were rented via the website, often at a price two or three times the legal rent.

The sheer scale of fraud is putting additional pressure on the city's housing stock, where only 3% of corporate housing is released each year for new tenants. The waiting list for a rent-controlled property, with rent below € 720 per month, is now 14 years old.

Hester van Buren, general manager of the Rochdale Housing Corporation, told the newspaper that housing fraud is often committed in combination with social security fraud and other problems.

Housing companies need to work with the police, the tax office and the SVB's payment agency to effectively fight social housing fraud, she said.