Is the landlord levy a threat to the rented housing sector? The case of the Netherlands.

In 2010 a working party made up of Dutch civil servants suggested a tool known as the ‘National Residential Property Tax’ with the aim of strengthening the public budget. Initially, this was intended as a tenure-neutral tax for both the owner-occupier and the rented sector. However, in the 2012 Coalition Agreement between the conservatives (VVD) and the social democrats (PvdA) it was narrowed down to a levy for landlords of properties with regulated rents – and thus ended up as a specific tax largely targeted at housing associations. On the one hand, the new government was offering housing association opportunities for annual rent increases above the rate of inflation but, on the other hand, it was getting ready to cream off the extra revenue to alleviate its own budgetary problems. By 2017 this new levy will have risen to 1.7 billion euros annually. This paper explains the background to this unique Dutch housing policy instrument and presents an ex ante evaluation of the impact of the landlord levy on housing associations, commercial real estate investors and tenants. It will also offer some conclusions and policy recommendations for housing policy in the Netherlands, which could be relevant for other European countries as well. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]