Landlord and tenant law

Landlords and tenants face frequent changes in the rules and rapidly shifting views driven by a constant stream of court decisions. That is the ground we know best.

We can assist you in negotiating and drawing up lease agreements, and the rules you have to work with sit in Boek 7 van het Burgerlijk Wetboek, Book 7 of the Dutch Civil Code, from article 7:201 onwards. Business premises come in two kinds under Dutch law, which matters more than it may sound, because a shop or a restaurant gives you a term of five years with a right to another five (article 7:290 and following, with that term in article 7:292), while an office or other business space leaves you with protection against eviction but no right to stay on once the lease ends (article 7:230a).

We litigate often. Think of proceedings to suspend a landlord’s rent increase or other measure, and proceedings to have a new tenant substituted for the sitting tenant when a business is sold (article 7:307). But also proceedings on rent reviews. Or proceedings where an owner needs the leased property for their own use, or in order to redevelop it. We litigate over all the disputes that can arise in the letting of retail and residential premises, including disputes about notices to terminate a lease that were given late or in the wrong form, where a landlord of retail premises can only rely on the limited grounds in article 7:296. And we handle every rent-recovery matter, even the most complex ones.

Our clients include investment companies, developers, estate agents and private landlords. And, of course, tenants of commercial and retail property.