Terminate Lease? Free Advice from Lawyers!

Questioner

Dear Sir/Madam, Since July 1, 2014, my girlfriend and I have been renting a private rental home. It is a fixed-term contract. It runs until June 2015. Due to the mediator's pushing and sales pitch, we agreed to the contract. The broker who arranged everything for us at the time suddenly disappeared and the landlord announced that she was suddenly no longer working with her. Since we have difficulty paying the rent and do not want to get into debt, we asked if we could terminate the contract prematurely. The landlord did not allow this. Our question is whether there is a possibility to get out of the contract. We are both 20 years old and were not aware of any snakes in the grass. The agreements made were also not fulfilled after contacting them several times. These agreements were that the leak would be fixed by the end of September and that we would have a new dishwasher. We have not received anything about this to date. Yours sincerely,

Lawyer

I need more information from you, such as your rental agreement.

Lawyer

If the lease agreement contains a minimum term, you are bound by it. The fact that the broker has disappeared, etc. is not relevant. The only option is to send the landlord a so-called defect letter (by registered mail) in which he is summoned to repair the defects within a reasonable period of time. You can also announce that you will otherwise repair the matter yourself (or have it repaired) and charge the landlord for the costs (and if necessary offset it against the rent), and/or that you will otherwise retain a certain percentage of the rent until it has been properly repaired. What a reasonable percentage is in this case depends on the seriousness of the situation. If the defects are serious enough, you can even proceed to terminate the lease. http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/huurwoning/onderhoud-huurwoning : Built-in appliances in kitchens are generally considered to be immovable appurtenances to the home. These built-in appliances are then rented out with the home by the landlord. Repairs to, for example, a broken built-in refrigerator are then at the landlord's expense. There is also a right to compensation for damage suffered and yet to be suffered and a proportional reduction in rent. The law stipulates this in articles 7:207 and 7:208 BW: 7:207 paragraph 1. In the event of a reduction in the enjoyment of the property due to a defect, the tenant may claim a proportionate reduction in the rent from the day on which he properly notified the landlord of the defect or on which the defect was already sufficiently known to take measures, until the day on which the defect was remedied. 7:208. Without prejudice to the consequences of failure to comply with the obligation under Article 206, the lessor is obliged to compensate for damage caused by a defect if the defect arose after the lease agreement was entered into and can be attributed to him, and if the defect was present when the lease agreement was entered into and the lessor knew or should have known of it at the time, or informed the lessee at the time that the property did not have the defect. Please feel free to contact me for a no-obligation consultation. Rental law has been my specialization for over 15 years.