Insecure tenure:the Precarisation of Rental Housing in the Netherlands

Secure housing is important for people’s well-being. Uncertainty about if and when you will need to leave your home has a negative effect on ontological security, the psychological stability that people need to live a meaningful life. This thesis answers the question whether rental housing in the Netherlands, over the last twenty years, has become less secure. The conclusion is that Dutch renting is becoming precarious to a significant extent. The successive introductions of new temporary contract forms goes very quickly, as do the continuous steep rent increases and the increases of starting rents. Rules on security of tenure, rent ceilings and maintenance are in theory still strong, but in practice knowledge of these regulations is almost non-existent, and enforcement is so weak that the rules have become largely meaningless. Empirical evidence shows that the majority of young adults in Amsterdam has a temporary renting contract, rather than a permanent one or being an owner occupier. This process of increasing precarity of the Dutch rental sector, or in other words, precarisation, manifests itself simultaneously through three processes. These are the increasing widening of the situations in which temporary rental contracts are legally permitted, the non-enforcement of regulations and the overt discursive shift against renting in recent decades. Until recently the strength of the Dutch rental sector was that it offered almost as much security as buying a house. However, this strength is now being rapidly eroded – and it will not be easy to reverse this situation once it is too late

Reform of assignation in security: lessons from The Netherlands

Item does not contain fulltext34 p

Navigating Legal Barriers to Mortgaging Energy Installations at Sea – the Case of the North Sea and the Netherlands

The North Sea is important within the European energy sector. In addition to the oil and gas reservoirs present beneath the seabed, the North Sea has been identified as a primary location to construct renewable energy infrastructure and may provide eight percent of the energy supply in Europe by 2030. Offshore oil and gas, offshore wind and ocean energy projects are capital intensive; billions of euros are required for the construction of many individual projects. It is common business practice to raise debt, which is more expensive when risks are greater. Security rights such as mortgage and pledge reduce the risks of lenders. It is currently impossible to mortgage installations situated on the seabed further than 22.2 kilometres off the Dutch coast. Allowing for such mortgages could benefit the development of the offshore energy sector as this would reduce risks. This contribution reviews an alternative which would allow for installations on this part of the seabed to be mortgaged. In this context law of the sea, the lex rei sitae, ownership of the seabed and rules of Dutch property law are discussed

Reducing Reoffending Research Project: Action Learning Set 4

The agenda for Action Learning Set 4 was ambitious, forward-facing, and embedded in sharing and thinking about working practice. It started with an observation of the LifeChange Programme and ended with members of the Dutch delegation meeting with local Police and Security officials discussing approaches to tackling football violence and religious extremism, and in-between there was much detailed reflection on progress. With the project closer to its conclusion now than its commencement, as the day developed the emphasis really shifted towards the project outcomes, measures of impact, and the roles of partners in playing their part(s) in achieving these end goal