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In 2006, responsibility for implementing the Dutch housing allowance system was transferred from the Ministry of Housing to the Tax Authority. It has since been renamed, and is now known as the ‘rent rebate system’. A number of dilemmas have become evident since the 2006 changes. Attention has shifted to how to implement the system effectively: how to limit the overconsumption of housing services, how to avoid moral hazard, how to reduce outright fraud, how to reduce the poverty trap, and how to prevent the escalation of public spending. These new dilemmas have led to the central research question in this article: how to redesign a system of rent rebates? The discussion of these dilemmas points to further changes. Proposals for a redesign of the rent rebate system in the Netherlands are presented. These proposals could also be relevant for other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tenants in the Netherlands not only pay relatively more for their housing consumption than owner-occupiers, but also appear to be subject to Schwabe's law on rent. This law states that households with a lower income are confronted with higher rent-to-income ratios than households with a higher income. In the Netherlands most rents are regulated, so these are expected to be at below-market levels. Tenants of these dwellings are eligible for housing allowances if their income is considered insufficient for paying the rent. The hypothesis is that a rental dwelling with a regulated rent and for which the tenant receives a housing allowance should be affordable to the tenant. However, as this paper shows, even a maximum degree of government intervention (rent regulation and housing allowances) plus the impact of affordable rent setting by landlords, leading to a maximum subsidisation of the tenant, cannot prevent a situation whereby tenants are paying an unaffordable rent. And an unaffordable rent suggests that these tenants may indeed feel impacted by housing affordability problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the role of housing expenses and subsidies with respect to income distribution in Flanders (the northern part of Belgium) and the Netherlands in 2005–2006. It analyses income poverty and inequality by comparing equivalent disposable income before and after housing expenses with a relative poverty threshold and the Gini coefficient. Poverty and income inequality increase in both ‘countries’ when equivalent disposable income is corrected for housing expenses. Furthermore, the relative position of outright owners and social tenants regarding poverty improves. Housing subsidies play a (partly) different role in Flanders and the Netherlands. The implicit social rent subsidy in Flanders and the explicit housing allowance in the Netherlands serve the same goal; however, they both redistribute income relatively strongly in favour of low-income tenants. The tax relief system on the other hand increases income inequality in society, in both Flanders and the Netherlands, whereas our comparative analysis suggests that tax relief does not have a moderating effect on net housing expenses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently housing affordability has reached the agenda in Flanders and the Netherlands, giving a good reason to present a review of the concept of affordability and different definitions. The concept of short-term affordability, which is concerned with financial access to a dwelling and is based on cash flows, is combined with the concept of long-term affordability, which is about the costs of housing consumption. The use of these concepts is illustrated for Flanders and the Netherlands. They show that each concept has its own uses and that they are not interchangeable. However, both concepts indicate that in 2005 higher-income households, and especially homeowners (with a mortgage), were relatively better off than lower-income households, particularly renters. Homeowners' higher income levels on average more than compensate for their higher expenses in comparison with tenants; they also receive higher explicit subsidization and in times of rising prices they also receive expected returns on housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing became more expensive in the Netherlands between 2002 and 2006, a trend which has been demonstrated using various measures of affordability. The expenditure-to-income ratios calculated for households confirm that the average cost of housing rose for tenants and homeowners, as well as for most income groups generally. This contribution analyses the development of various components of household expenditure which contributed to these higher ratios. One of the most important considerations here is the fact that average household disposable incomes either fell (tenants) or remained stable (homeowners) during the four-year period under review. This leads to the question of whether these increasing income differences between renting and owning can be attributed to the business cycle alone, or whether they are part of a longer-term trend that will eventually result in a rental sector that provides housing for those on lower incomes. The findings suggest that a longer-term or structural widening of the income gap between renting and owning may indeed be taking place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the function, design, and effects of a method to assess the performance of housing associations in the Netherlands. First, the roles of performance assessment are discussed from three perspectives: the association as an agent for the central government; the association as a facilitator of local stakeholders’ needs; and the association as an autonomous social entrepreneur. From each of these stereotypical perspectives, we derive the approaches to and functions of performance assessment. The resulting theoretical archetypes of performance assessment are then employed to analyze the method that was in place in 2005 in the Netherlands. The performance assessment system is also analyzed using the director, detector, and effector elements drawn from cybernetic theory. Furthermore, the Dutch performance assessment method is briefly compared with the English inspection system. This provides a better understanding of the types of performance assessment. In light of the identified perspectives on housing associations, we conclude that the Dutch method performs poorly on the director and effector element and that the English method performs relatively well on all elements. Nevertheless, in both countries adjustments in the performance assessment system can increase learning and improve the performance of housing associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Social rental housing has once again captured a strong position on the Dutch political agenda. This has happened especially since the European Commission sent a letter to the Dutch government indicating that the Dutch social rental sector was not considered EU-proof from the viewpoint of the European Union's competition policy. The letter coincided with criticisms from Dutch politicians that housing associations had not been performing well enough for some time, given their abundant resources. However, in an international context, the Dutch social rental sector is often regarded as a good system for providing affordable housing to those who need it, without the sector being marginalized and stigmatized. Jim Kemeny has classified this market as one in which the social rental sector in due course competes with the private rental sector on equal or almost equal terms as a unitary rental market. The starting point of this paper is whether the achievement of a unitary rental sector is threatened by the EU's competition policy. It will also discuss two other possible threats to the future of the Dutch unitary rental market: the threat to take surplus capital away from housing associations and have government decide on what to invest; and the attractiveness of home-ownership to households. We conclude that the character of the Dutch unitary rental sector is indeed under threat, although mostly by stealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares the housing allocation system in Netherlands with that of Ireland, Spain, Great Britain and Germany. An overview of the housing allocation policy in Netherlands is provided. A discussion of the housing allocation process under the distribution model and deft allocation model is presented. The composition of the housing stock in each of the countries is explained.

This contribution evaluates ways to compare financially renting and owning in order to measure tenure neutrality. Tenure neutrality is defined as the situation in which the consumer is financially indifferent between owning and renting a dwelling. This paper discusses the possibilities of defining tenure neutrality via government spending on housing, household housing cash flows and household housing costs. The Dutch situation delivers the numerical examples. It is concluded that the user cost of housing would be the only concept with which tenure neutrality truly can be measured. But it appears that theory may be difficult to implement in housing policy. This may also be the main explanation why such little progress has been made in the past three decades. The conclusion is reached that the implementation of the concept of user cost in housing policy is a complex undertaking. More discussion and best case reports are needed about the implementation of user costs in order to better clarify the options and the effects on housing consumption. A good starting point would be, if user costs were monitored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how personal income taxation has changed across countries and whether and how this has affected the taxation of owner-occupied dwellings. It presents a partial analysis as it focuses on imputed rent taxation and the mortgage interest deduction. Furthermore, the paper places housing taxation in a wider context by describing different benchmarks which could be used to assess the taxation of owner-occupied housing in different types of personal income tax. These international and theoretical points-of-departure are used to evaluate the taxation of owner-occupied housing in the Netherlands. The paper concludes that all along political arguments have conquered theoretical premises to the advantage of the owner occupier in comparison to the private landlord. It also concludes that the theoretical base in 2001 has become so weak that owner-occupied housing is in an exceptional position in comparison with other private wealth thus becoming an easy victim for future tax savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]