Are you having issues with heating your home during the winter in Maastricht? Read below the advice provided by the rental team, Huurteam Zuid-Limburg.
The landlord must ensure that all rooms in a property meet the minimum temperature requirements. These requirements are as follows:
- Living room: 20 C˚
- Kitchen: 20 C˚
- Toilet: 15 C˚
- Entrance: 15 C˚
- Hallway: 15 C˚
- Bedroom: 18 C˚
- Bathroom: 22 C˚
With an outdoor temperature of -10 C˚, it should still be possible to maintain the above temperatures in all rooms with the heating system on the property. When these temperatures are not achieved, this can be classified as a defect.
It sometimes also happens that the landlord has control over the heating system in your home. In a recent court case, the tenant’s living room radiator was lacking a thermostatic valve. This meant that the tenant had no control over the temperature. The thermostat for the entire property was located in the landlord’s unit, leading to inadequate heating in the tenant’s rooms.
The court ruled that while the landlord is not specifically required to install a thermostatic valve, they are required to provide a heating system capable of maintaining the minimum temperature requirements. The absence of such functionality constitutes a defect by the defects list of the Rent Tribunal.
What can you do about this?
If you are struggling with heating issues in your rental property, you can do the following:
- Document the issue: It is difficult to prove that the minimum temperatures are consistently not being reached. To prove this, you need to keep some kind of logbook. The temperature should be measured 3 times a day, in the morning, afternoon and in the evening. To document this adequately, you must take a picture of the thermometer in the room, and of a phone or another device next to the thermometer showing what day and time it is at the moment the photo was taken. Do this for several weeks so that it is clear that the minimum temperature is consistently not being reached.
- Notify your landlord: The landlord can only fix issues when they are aware of them. Send a written request (via e-mail, not WhatsApp) asking them to resolve the issue. If you already have kept a logbook, you can also send the landlord your logbook where you kept track of the temperatures in your rented property. The landlord then has 6 weeks to fix the deficit(s). You can also send the landlord your logbook somewhere in those six weeks to substantiate your initial request.
- Seek assistance: If the landlord has not fixed the issues within 6 weeks, you can start a procedure at the Rent Tribunal to ask for a temporary rent reduction due to this deficit in your property. Huurteam Zuid-Limburg can assist you in this procedure.
