Getting things fixed in The Hague: repairs, tradespeople and who to call

Before you ring anyone, establish whether it is yours to fix.

If you rent, that question has a legal answer rather than a negotiated one, and it is set out in a piece of Dutch law called the Besluit kleine herstellingen.

The principle is simple.

The landlord repairs defects.

The tenant handles small repairs.

What counts as small is listed, and the list cannot be varied to the tenant’s disadvantage, however a contract is worded.

Where the line falls

Yours: washers in the tap, door handles, light switches, bleeding the radiators, cleaning the filters in the mechanical ventilation, painting and wallpapering the inside, keeping the garden in order, washing the windows you can reach.

Theirs: the boiler, the exterior paintwork, window frames, gutters, the roof, anything structural, anything that stops the property being habitable.

A broken cv-ketel in January is emphatically the landlord’s problem, and so is damp coming through a wall.

Report it in writing, always, even if you also ring.

A WhatsApp message is written and is evidence; a phone call is neither.

When the landlord does nothing

Give them six weeks in writing from the date you reported the defect.

If it is still not fixed, you can go to the Huurcommissie and ask for a temporary rent reduction until it is.

You start it through MijnHuurcommissie with DigiD, choosing the form for huurverlaging op grond van onderhoudsgebreken.

There is a 25 euro deposit, refunded if you win, split if you partly win, and waived entirely if you are on a minimum income.

A surveyor then inspects the property and reports.

One important distinction.

For regulated and mid-segment tenancies the ruling binds the landlord.

In the free sector the Huurcommissie issues an advisory opinion, and a landlord is not legally obliged to follow it, which changes the calculation about whether to start.

The tenant rights article covers which category you are in, and it is worth knowing before you need it.

The numbers to have in your phone now

Gas or electricity, including a smell of gas: 0800 9009.

It is the national outage number, free, staffed around the clock, and it reaches the grid operator rather than your energy supplier.

In The Hague the grid operator is Stedin.

Water: Dunea, 088 347 47 47, which takes reports 24 hours a day.

Dunea supplies the whole of this part of South Holland.

That distinction between grid operator and supplier confuses almost everyone.

Your supplier sells you the energy and sends the bill.

The grid operator owns the cable and the pipe and fixes them, and you never chose them.

The utilities article sets out which is which.

For gas in particular, act first and diagnose later: open windows, do not touch switches, leave, then call.

Hiring a tradesperson

Ask for an offerte, a written quotation, before any work starts, and ask explicitly whether the price is inclusief btw.

Dutch quotes to consumers are normally VAT-inclusive and a quote that is not will be about a fifth higher than it looks.

Ask about voorrijkosten, the call-out charge, which is standard here and is levied whether or not anything gets fixed.

A plumber who comes out, looks, and says it needs a part will still invoice for the visit.

Check the KvK number.

Every legitimate Dutch business has one, it is on the quotation, and it takes thirty seconds to look up in the Chamber of Commerce register.

That single check filters out most of what goes wrong with handymen and contractors in The Hague.

One genuine saving worth knowing: labour on painting and plastering in a home more than two years old is taxed at 9% VAT rather than 21%, including preparation and materials.

If a decorator quotes you 21% on an old Hague flat, query it.

Who to call for what

A leak, a blocked drain or a dead boiler is a plumber, and boiler work in particular should go to someone certified for gas appliances rather than a general handyman.

A tripping fuse box or a dead socket is an electrician.

Water coming through the ceiling of a top-floor flat is a roofer, and it is the landlord’s or the VvE’s before it is yours.

Locked out is a locksmith, and this is the one trade where price gouging is common, so agree a price on the phone before anyone is dispatched.

If you own a flat, the door to the street belongs to the building, not to you.

Which brings up the VvE.

In a Dutch apartment building the vereniging van eigenaars owns and maintains everything shared: the roof, the stairwell, the facade, the communal pipes.

If you own, you pay into it monthly and you go to it rather than to a contractor.

If you rent, your landlord deals with it and you deal with your landlord.

The free option people forget

Repair Cafe Den Haag is a volunteer operation that fixes things for nothing.

It moves every three weeks around community centres, city farms and kringloop shops, and the volunteers bring tools and knowledge for clothing, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, clocks and toys.

The point is not only the free repair.

The volunteers explain what they are doing while they do it, which is how a jammed zip or a loose plug stops being a thing you throw an item away over.

In a city where a lot of people are renting furnished and buying cheap, that is worth more than it sounds.

For the same reason, the ordinary shops still exist here and are cheap: a cobbler will resole shoes, a phone shop will replace a screen, and a bike shop will fix a puncture while you wait.

Throwing things away is the expensive option, and the disposal rules in the waste article make that literal.

Bought something that broke

Dutch consumer law works on conformity rather than a fixed warranty period.

A product must do what you could reasonably expect of it for as long as you could reasonably expect, and a washing machine failing after two years is not obviously your bad luck.

That right sits against the seller who sold it to you, not the manufacturer, and it exists regardless of what the shop’s own guarantee says.

Keep receipts.

Complain in writing to the shop, not the maker.

And if the shop refuses, the dispute route is a geschillencommissie rather than a court, which is far cheaper and designed for exactly this.

Finally, a Hague-specific note about timing.

Tradespeople here book out, and the week after a named storm every roofer in the city is busy.

If something needs doing and it is not urgent, book it in autumn rather than after the first gale.

Sources

• Rijksoverheid, welke kosten zijn voor de huurder en welke voor de verhuurder: tenants responsible for interior painting, wallpapering, whitewashing walls and ceilings and small items such as tap washers, door knobs and electrical switches, landlords responsible for exterior painting, a new central heating boiler and replacement of window frames and gutters, with the rules codified in the Besluit kleine herstellingen and rent reduction available through the Huurcommissie where a landlord neglects repairs
• Woonbond and Huurcommissie, Besluit kleine herstellingen: the list of small repairs that fall to the tenant, including bleeding radiators and cleaning mechanical ventilation filters, and the rule that it cannot be departed from to the tenant’s disadvantage
• Huurcommissie, tijdelijke huurverlaging bij ernstige gebreken: six weeks allowed to the landlord after the defect is reported, the procedure started through MijnHuurcommissie with DigiD using the form for huurverlaging op grond van onderhoudsgebreken, a surveyor’s inspection, and the outcome binding in the regulated and mid sector but advisory in the free sector
• Huurcommissie, wat kost een procedure: a 25 euro deposit paid in advance, refunded if you win, partly refunded if both sides are partly right, and exemption available on a minimum income
• Stedin and the national outage service: 0800 9009, free and available 24 hours a day for gas and electricity outages, with Stedin as the grid operator for the South Holland region including The Hague
• Dunea, storing en onderhoud: reports taken 24/7 on 088 347 47 47
• Belastingdienst, btw-tarief werkzaamheden aan woningen ouder dan 2 jaar: painting and plastering of homes two years or older taxed at 9% rather than 21%, including preparatory work and materials, and applying also where a main contractor subcontracts the work
• Duurzaam Den Haag and repaircafedenhaag.nl: a free repair event moving location roughly every three weeks around community centres, city farms and kringloop shops, with volunteers and tools for clothing, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, clocks and toys