It could happen to you: you pay more than 100,000 euros to an anti-squat agency that then breaks into your home and pretends they can put you out on the street without rights.
That happened to Maarten from Heerlen. For ten years he has been renting through Interim BV property owner's old hospital and school buildinggebouw Snippe Projects BV at Rector Driessenweg 8 in Heerlen, his 2 roommates have been living there for 14 years. Speculator and project developer Snippe wanted to demolish the building but does not yet have a demolition permit for the development of 3 flats with expensive luxury apartments.
“According to the bureau, we should deliver our building on April 28, but we're not doing that,” says Maarten defiantly. “Just yesterday Interim BV broke into my basement here and forced the lock. They also left a note in which they indicate that they will put us out on the street on Monday and remove our belongings. This while we have already informed them through the lawyer that we do not agree with the termination and claim rental rights. We have already filed a report with the police of trespassing”. It is not the first time that Interim has illegally evicted tenants.
Anti-squat agencies have written down in their contracts that it is a loan contract (read disguised lease 1,2,3 ) and not a lease with social protection. At the moment that this would not be a "loan", it would be "short-term rental by its nature", is often stated in these hybrid strangulation contracts. That while short-term rental, by its nature, has not been developed for living space at all, but for holiday cottages and change houses. Abuse of law. We live on a normal rental contract.
Politics and business.
An entire industry of parasitic mediation agencies has been laughingly rich on the backs of home seekers and precarious tenants because of this trick for years. Helped in the saddle by CDA member Jan ten Hoopen whose party was closely involved in 2009 in the creation of a so-called quality mark for anti-squat agencies. Now, a few years later, he has been rewarded for his "services" with the chairmanship of the KLB, its own meat quality mark. Certified companies such as Interim BV can now continue their rampage among tenants outside all rental legislation and with the sham legislation of the quality mark in their pocket. Conflict of interest? That is simply the way power works in the Netherlands.
We didn't pay for nothing for 10 years after all. Ok placing a shower cabin, 100000 Euro! Come on, phew Maarten is snorting angrily. That is why we became a member of the BPW. We just want an affordable house and are going to enforce it this way. We have also engaged a lawyer through the BPW. We now jointly invoke our tenancy rights. Between 2000 and 2007 about 25 people lived in the building. In the period together, they also paid approximately EUR 300,000 in “loan payment” to Interim BV, Maarten estimates. They then received a notice of termination because the building was to be demolished. But we're still here.
The BPW is pleased to see that these flex tenants are not just letting it go and calls on local parties in Heerlen to support these tenants and prevent illegal evictions on Monday by Interim BV or the outsourcing owner Snippe.
The BPW advocates the abolition of housing systems based on the lack of rights of tenants. We therefore demand public and social housing for everyone no profit for the property owners and speculators class. Housing is a primary necessity of life. We don't want to become a generation that is forced as disenfranchised flex nomads by drawing life. We need to learn lessons for the future from the current real estate and debt crisis. We demand a socially inclusive system with housing and social protection for all. Especially for temporary tenants! Not a society that excludes and condemns people to the margins and precarity and on the other hand people who, as a result, build gigantic wealth and wealth. Together we can realize something like this. Join us!