Rental problems? Free legal advice

Questioner

For a period of 7 months we were forced to rent an apartment privately. We moved there and lived there during that period together with our three children. So we registered there too. But the person we rented from refused to deregister herself from that address all that time. She lived somewhere else with her boyfriend during that period. The unfortunate consequence of this is that this person was wrongly officially registered as our allowance partner. As a result, we have to pay back our allowances for this period, to which we were entitled given our composition, in full at 1800 euros. My question about this is whether we are able to do anything about this. Is it possible to prove that she did not live here during this period? Is the lease agreement proof of this? Is there a way not to lose our money? We also strongly suspect that she continued to receive mortgage interest during this period and during previous periods that she rented out the apartment. How can we bring this to light so that we can put an end to her fraud and that she will be punished appropriately?

Lawyer

You can appeal against the decision to repay the allowance. You can inform the municipality about the fact that the landlady has not lived with you. It seems to me easy to prove that this is the case. The lease certainly seems to me a document to prove that she did not live with you. You can hold the landlord liable for her actions or omissions. What do you mean by the sentence: did she simply receive mortgage interest? Do you mean pay? so that she has a deductible item? If the latter is the case, you can send a copy of the rental agreement to the tax authorities, stating that the landlord did not have the address in question as her main residence.