So this is an article I put up on the r/rentbusters about Marcel van Hooijdonk: a notorious slum landlord based in Breda Marcel owns many properties in NL according to Kadaster and has built a massive rental empire in Utrecht and Breda of about 320 buildings and apartments. A complete list can be found here

https://1drv.ms/x/s!AhS9UiEeuDTxgoIAwQHecvMJBUoOoQ?e=rhimIg

Unfortunately Marcel has not behaved as a good landlord should. He rents to many students through a series of companies with dubious/no kvk registration including VanderHuizen and University Housing. If you are a student and you live in Utrecht, you are likely to come across some of his housing

MvH has been accused of intimidating, threatening and scamming tenants since 2015.

MvH goes to extreme lengths to hide his face from the media. When this was posted to the main subreddit, Reddit deleted it very fast and banned me from the website, permanently. It might be that Reddit was overzealous with its admin staff, so it is possibly unrelated to MvH.

This is Marcel Van Hooijdonk

MvH has refined the art of scamming tenants: there are 4 ways that his companies separate tenants from their money 1: Overcharging on the basic rent Rent prices in NL are regulated and many landlords overcharge on the basic rent. VdH are one of them. If you are overcharged, you can appeal to the Huurcommissie to get your rent price lowered.

2: Exorbitant service costs. VdH will often not give you a service cost breakdown in July. In some of their rented accommodation they charge 30 euro (ish) per month for internet costs while having only one internet connection to service an entire floor. By law, Landlords are prohibited from profiting from service costs and while they can charge admin fees, these are limited.

3: VdH charge agency fees to any tenant who moves into one of their apartments. Contract signing costs are seen as part of the expense of doing business and should either be proportional to the service provided or non-existent.

4: Furniture rentals: This one is exclusive to Utrecht as many of the agencies there do it. VdH will present you with a separate contract for leasing the furniture to you for an outrageous price (300-600 euro). The furniture itself is IKEA junk but they can easily make 18000 euro over a 5 year lifespan of the furniture.

For those of you who are looking in utrecht or Breda, it would be best to avoid a MvH house. Only those of you who enjoy busting as a sport should risk it. At best you will have legal battle on your hands. At worst, MvH or his goons will kick your door at random moments to intimidate you, cut your electricity and smear shit on your door handle (all these have happened)

For those of you who want to find out more about MvH, check out Tim Hofman’s youtube videos on him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUq2IBVuewM