Delft is considering rental team to beat room scamming

Stip, one of the parties represented in the Municipality, tabled questions to the Municipality after an investigation by Delta which showed that international students are sometimes easy game for room scammers. These fraudsters offer rooms that either not exist or are already occupied. Students only find out after they have transferred the deposit. After that, the ‘landlord’ can no longer be reached.

Stip questioned the Municipality on the scale of the problem in Delft. After checking with TU Delft and the police, the Municipality reported seven complaints about this type of scam since 1 July 2019. Apart from these, there are four larger scams known.

Delft wants to improve its information for students

The Municipality announced that it will check if a rental team could support students and other room renters in cases of fraud and deceit. Stip and four other council parties had submitted a motion in November 2019 in which they asked for a team like this to be established, primarily to keep rents under control. The Municipality is also planning to work with TU Delft to improve information for international and Dutch students.

Delta’s investigation also led to questions being raised in Parliament. The Minister answered these earlier this week. She announced that a national obligatory permit for room renters was not desirable. But she did point out that individual municipalities could introduce rental permits if they so wished. The Municipality of Delft is not planning to do so at this point in time.