With the price of accommodation in Brussels continuing to rise at the same time as the cost of living presents a major challenge for many households, the Capital Region has proposed new conditions to protect tenants from major rent indexations.
The measure, planned to come into force on 1 September 2024 would mean that to increase the rent, landlords will be required to register certain information about their property on a regional administration platform, Belgian newspaper L'Echo reports.
The move will allow regional authorities to gain a detailed insight into the rental market and the overall condition of properties across the capital. At present, tenancy agreements should be registered on the MyRent portal of Belgium's Finance Ministry but Brussels housing minister Nawal Ben Hamou (PS) says that this information is often incomplete, making it insufficient as a resource for landlords and tenants to calculate how much rent should be.
What are the conditions?
As well as preventing excessive rent hikes, the initiative aims to precisely map out the capital's rental offering, accounting for neighbourhood differences, the number of bedrooms, and the size of the property.
Notably, it requires details of the energy performance to be recorded – a measure that follows from the previous ban on rent indexations if a property does not have a sufficiently high energy efficiency. This stipulation was introduced as the energy crisis set in, triggering a cost-of-living crisis that made many unable to sustain increases in rent as well as other consumer items that became more expensive.
The measure was welcomed by tenants but was phased out in October 2023 as the ordinance of 2022 expired after a year. The end of what was seen as a renters' protection triggered widespread condemnation. This latest proposal again makes energy efficiency central to increasing rents.
It is hoped that the new conditions will allow the rental market to be closely analysed – crucial information at a time when building quality is becoming a more pertinent issue to authorities and consumers alike.
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The office of the Brussels housing minister explains that the required details would already be included in a rental contract and could be uploaded on the MyRent portal, but generally are not because this is optional. "The idea is to be able to assess existing data better," Ben Hamou's office clarified.
Not all rental properties will be covered by the measure; longer-term contracts might fall outside the defined time frame. The need to register details on the portal would only apply to tenancy agreements signed after 1 January 2020.
Landlords will have one year to enter the necessary information onto the site and may not index rent until they have done so, though initial details of the proposal do not show whether a minimum energy performance certificate (PEB) must be attained.
Rental agreements signed in 2020 or later can be indexed during a one-year transition period, however the landlord will lose their right to index rents if the property details are not put on the site within this period.
The draft ordinance has been passed by ministers and will now go to the Council of State for approval.
