For the record
2e Delistraat 5, Utrecht — Costs & Situations Absorbed 2025–2026
A note before the detail
We've been happy in this flat, and we want this sale to go through as much as you do.
When the offer to buy came, we didn't haggle on the price, we pulled the funding and made the decision together quickly so the sale could move forward. We've tried to make this easy from start to finish for all parties.
This isn't a demand, and it isn't a conflict — it's just us being honest, between all four of us. After the year we've had here, an extra €3,000 on top doesn't feel fair to us. The rest of this page is a detailed overview of what we absorbed — so you have the full picture.
Background
A short timeline of the issues that came up during our tenancy — many of which we ended up handling ourselves.
- 2025 Rats under the floor. Rats under the dining room floor. Marleen gave us poison, which had mixed success, a pest control professional was never called, rats raise serious hygiene and infection risks and we could only rely on the poison, which either did work or not. Apart from being concerned about our own health this was a real worry with an immune suppressed cat with leukaemia.
- 2025 Roof leak in the dining room. The dining room roof leaked on and off through 2025. We reported it repeatedly and contractors came out two or three times, but it kept coming back — in between, we cleaned the damp and mould off ourselves. It was finally resolved once we noticed the structural void beneath the floor and flagged it to Marleen (below).
- January 2026 Fence collapses. Coming back to NL from the winter holidays, we found our fence completely collapsed into our garden almost certainly due to the heavy snow and freeze in Utrecht, early January. We cleared the debris — well over 100 kg of frozen ivy in freezing cold — and offered to rebuild it ourselves, making a start. But while clearing up we uncovered a serious structural void beneath the dining room floor, which took priority, so the fence rebuild was put on hold.
- March 2026 Structural void & floor rebuild. The void — which we'd unknowingly lived over for months — led to a two-week demolition and rebuild (2–16 Mar) that left the flat uninhabitable. Marleen covered our temporary accommodation and we agreed to set that month's rent aside — but the additional costs still fell to us: a rental car, and near-daily trips to check the flat, which contractors kept leaving open with our belongings exposed (more in section 3). Nothing was wrapped, so the flat filled with construction dust that lingered for weeks afterwards — a real worry given our cat's leukaemia and Dorottya's asthma and the fact that by then we had been living in major discomfort for months already. We spent days cleaning the dust while we only flagged the problem, we did not think we would come home for a (somewhat) unfinished dirty mess. Good news however, that the new structure passed the recent heavy rain test, so the leak problem is hopefully resolved, confirming that it was likely caused by the structural void.
- Mar – Apr 2026 Finishing the flat ourselves. We moved back into a flat that was dirty and still coated in dust, with the dining-room floor left as bare concrete. Marleen and her father offered to finish the floor while we travelled back to Hungary for the elections. However, coming back we found that the old, broken laminate had been laid down — pieces damaged by the contractors, with cracks and bent edges — rather than new boards, which we had specifically asked for. It looked poor, left an uneven tripping hazard, and our dining-room furniture couldn't go back until it was put right. In the end we sourced the correct laminate ourselves — renting a car to collect it from Almere — and Dorottya's father flew in from Hungary to help lay it properly. Only once the dining room was finally done did we go back and rebuild the collapsed fence by hand, digging out the ivy roots that had brought it down. No contractor was involved in either; we spent hour after hour simply making the flat and garden livable again. We did it in good faith, but it was work that should have fallen to the landlord.
Taken together, that's a year at Delistraat of real disruption and a string of additional costs tied directly to the renovations — out-of-pocket spending (the rental car and fuel, parking, an air purifier, building materials and new flooring) alongside hours of our own labour (the floor, the cleaning, the fence). The sections below set both out, with receipts where we have them.
1
Costs we paid out of pocket
Each item is backed by a receipt or bank statement — tap a row to open it.
Philips air purifier (MediaMarkt)€ 153.00
Bought the day after we moved back in. It read 900 particles/m³ on first use (as a reference, the ideal p/m3 is a maximum of 12 — the construction dust had made air quality seriously poor (nothing had been wrapped or protected).
Laminaat Plaza — oak laminate€ 129.72
The floor structure was rebuilt but left without a finished surface, so we sourced the flooring ourselves: 6 packs of Noblesse 4660 oak laminate from Laminaat Plaza in Almere.
Greenwheels — car share€ 82.29
A car-share (VW Golf) to drive Utrecht → Almere and back via GAMMA to collect the flooring materials. 106 km, 4 hours — needed because the floor was left for us to finish.
Subtotal — out-of-pocket€ 913.07
2
Work we did ourselves
No receipts here — these are estimates, not invoices. They're work a landlord would normally pay a professional for, valued at what hiring that professional would have cost (typical NL rates for each job) — a rough sense of the costs we saved the landlord by doing it ourselves. We're not tradesmen, so it took us longer than a pro would; these figures reflect the price of the work, not the hours we personally spent on it. Again, we do not wish to be reimbursed, we only ask for reconsidering adding the extra 3000 EUR to the purchase price in light of all this.
Fence rebuild — labour≈ € 700–1,200
A severe snowstorm collapsed the fence in early January. We cleared the debris — well over 100 kg of frozen ivy, dug out by the roots — and, once the dining-room floor was finally finished in April, rebuilt the fence with concrete-set posts and sanded and painted it. A garden firm doing the same job (clearing, disposal, building and finishing) would charge roughly this in labour. To be fair, this one was a shared effort: Marijke helped with the build herself, and the materials (€500) were covered by Marleen and Marijke together — so while the figure shown is the value of the whole job, realistically only about half of it would fall to Marleen's side. We didn't charge for our time and would rather leave it that way; it's noted here only for completeness.
Post-construction cleaning≈ € 200–400
Construction dust coated the whole ground floor; we removed the sheeting and cleared the debris ourselves, as the flat hadn't been cleaned before we moved back. A professional post-renovation clean (opleveringsschoonmaak) of this size would cost roughly this much. Our kitchen was left in a poor state, dust and debris everywhere and on many of our possessions, the contractors put heavy materials on our flowerbed destroying some of the plants, left drink cans and rubbish in the garden and inside too and they left our toilet very dirty not even slightly cleaning up after themselves.
Floor installation — labour≈ € 400–700
The contractors left the dining-room floor as a raw concrete base. We were going back to Hungary and asked Marleen if it could be sorted while we were away; she said yes. When we returned, her father had attempted it using broken, torn-up pieces of the old floor rather than new boards — not a usable result. For a flat at €1,500/month, a professional installer would have been the right call. The floor still wasn't done, so Dorottya's father (65) flew over from Budapest to finish it properly — sourcing and collecting the correct laminate, clearing away the failed attempt, prepping the base and laying the new boards. A professional vloerlegger laying ~12 m² (underlay, boards and skirting) would charge roughly this in labour. His flight (~€620) is deliberately not included in this claim — see above why. The dining room itself stayed out of use well beyond the two covered weeks — from mid-March until the floor was finally laid in mid-April, roughly a further month — and the paintwork and plastering were still left unfinished, as documented in the technical inspection.
Estimated value of the work we saved the landlord≈ € 1,300–2,300
3
Other issues we documented
Reported during the tenancy and, in most cases, handled by us in good faith. Listed here as context — not as a money claim.
Rat infestation — hygiene & health
Rats under the floor for months, and a nest in the garden shed. We reported it; Marleen provided poison but no professional exterminator was ever called, so we dealt with it ourselves. We did put the poison down in the end, but having it in the flat was a real worry — both for our cat, who has leukaemia, and for our own health.
Flat left unsecured during works
The flat was left fully open throughout the renovation, with our belongings still inside — our sofa and everything else effectively stood 'outside' for two weeks. We have footage and photos of neighbourhood cats in the flat, including on the sofa. Nothing of ours was damaged, but it was far from hygienic and we had to clean everything thoroughly afterwards.
Post-renovation damage — kitchen
Concrete patches on the kitchen wallpaper, unfinished tile and acrylic work, and holes in the walls — new paint will be needed. The kickboard was already damaged beforehand, but the works made it worse; we offered to fix it. Nothing was wrapped during the works, so dishes and surfaces were all left covered in dust.
Entrance hall — wall damage
The entrance hall was left badly dirtied and the walls marked during the works, with nothing protected — at least part of it will likely need repainting.
Furniture moved & rooms reorganised
We move the furniture from the dining room to let the contractor's work. Naturally, we expected that after the renovation was done, we would be able to put back the furniture to the dining room where they belonged. Instead due to the floor being wobbly, delays due the cleaning and the additional pending painting jobs, our dining room's furniture could not be put back to this day, still sitting in the living room. Not to mention that since May when you indicated that the house would be put up for sale, we decided to prioritize making the purchase happen, many of these tasks were put on hold. However, it does not change the fact and the inconvenience having our furniture all over the place for three months now.
Microwave — reported, not replaced
Broken and reported; we're still awaiting a response on whether it will be repaired or replaced — it remains an open question. As tenants until the end of June 2026, this is the landlord's to maintain.
Hot water & heating — ageing boiler
The flat runs on an old CV boiler (Benraad, 10+ years old) that has given trouble since 2025. The heating threw errors on and off through 2025 and into January 2026; a technician looked at it but it was never replaced. The June 2026 structural inspection flagged the boiler as old and due for replacement. More recently the hot water has started cutting out at random — mid-shower and so on — which we reported; a technician visit is only now being arranged. A recurring issue across the tenancy.
Our position
This past year asked a lot of us — rats under the floor, a roof that leaked for months, two weeks in temporary housing, and several more months in a half-finished flat. Marleen covered our accommodation for those two weeks and we agreed to set March's rent aside - we were genuinely grateful for that. We also highly appreciate Paulo's work put into this purchase process.
But that month covered the time we were out of the house; it didn't touch what came after. Putting the flat right fell to us — the rental car and the materials, the new flooring, the fence, the cleaning — much of it work you'd normally pay a professional for, and all of it staying with the house. We took it on in good faith and tried to be helpful and easy to deal with throughout.
We're not putting an invoice in front of you, and the exact figure isn't really the point — but all told it came to a few thousand euros in out-of-pocket costs and our own labour, on top of the month's rent that was waived. It also leaves out the things with no price tag: the uncertainty while the sale was on and off, the mortgage meetings that ate into time off, the weekends lost to all of it.
So, honestly: for much of this year the flat wasn't really delivering what we were paying for — enough that even March's rent was set aside by agreement. Through all of it we kept putting into this place, and once the offer to buy came we spent weeks, basically every day, getting the purchase over the line — pulling the family funds together quickly and finally securing the paperwork from Daniel's employer too. We've acted in good faith from start to finish, so being asked for a further €3,000 for two more months is hard to square with all of that. We'd much rather close this chapter on good terms — and setting that addition aside feels like the fairer way to get there.
Legal basis — for reference
Included for completeness.
Art. 7:204 BW — Gebrek (defect)
A "gebrek" is any state of the property that stops the tenant from fully using it. The structural void, the unfinished floor, the collapsed fence, the rats and the recurring roof leak each fall under this. Dutch tenancy law places responsibility for defects of this kind with the landlord.
Art. 7:206 BW — Repair obligation
The landlord is required to repair defects and restore the property to a proper standard. For the fence, the floor and the post-renovation cleanup, this didn't happen and we stepped in — which is the context for the work in section 2.
Art. 7:207 BW — Rent reduction
When a defect limits how much a tenant can use the property, they're entitled to a proportional rent reduction for that period. The two weeks the whole flat was uninhabitable were already settled between us by waiving that month's rent. Beyond that, the dining room stayed unusable until the floor was finished in mid-April — roughly a further month — for which a proportional reduction could in principle apply. As a rough estimate that would be in the order of €250–410 (around 15–25% of one month's rent, the dining room being about a fifth of the flat). We haven't formally claimed it; it's noted here because the right exists.
Art. 7:208 BW — Damages
Where defects arise from work carried out on the property, the tenant can recover the out-of-pocket costs that result. The items in section 1 — car rental, fuel, materials, parking — are the direct costs of the works.
Art. 7:216 BW — Tenant improvements
Improvements a tenant makes that remain after the lease ends can be taken into account. We finished the dining room floor and rebuilt the fence — both of which remain part of the property. We haven't put these in our cost claim, but they're worth noting as part of what we put into the home.
ROZ model lease — signed 20 June 2024
Our lease is the standard Dutch ROZ model, which sets the baseline condition of the property. Damage caused by contractors during the works is not the tenant's responsibility at move-out, and the deposit should return to us in full.
Prepared by the tenants · 2e Delistraat 5, Utrecht · figures rounded to the nearest euro in our position.