Check your room and save lots of Euros
Every student living in lodgings knows the problem: every month the rent you pay for your room makes serious inroads into your already tight budget. It would be possible, though, to enjoy that extra glass of beer, if you would take the trouble of surfing to www.checkjekamer.nl.
Reasonable rent or not?
Being a decent person, you transfer the rent for your room to your landlord's account every month. Just something that you do out of routine. That's just the way things are. You transfer money to your landlord's account to live in a den of twenty square metres, while your landlord can never be reached when something is leaking, hanging loose or falling apart for the umpteenth time. Thanks to a job on the side, a study loan, and financial support from your parents, you just manage to make ends meet.
Check your room
It would be possible, though, to save a considerable amount of money if you would take the trouble of surfing to www.checkjekamer.nl. This site allows you to figure out whether you are paying too much. If this is the case, you are entitled to call in a special Tenant Support Team. ‘Since not everybody knows this, we are here on the Radboud University Campus to inform students on their rights as tenants’, said Jonas Sweep, chairman of the Dutch National Students' Union (Landelijke Studenten Vakbond) on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
Calculating your rent
In the hall of the Erasmus building two notebooks invite students passing by to fill out their room data and the amount of money they pay for rent every month. If you have filled in the data, the computer will calculate whether you are paying too much, too little (yeah, right, no problem) or exactly the right amount of money for rent. These calculations have shown, for instance, that Lisa (23), second year student of Business Communication, is overcharged by EUR 56 a month for her room of 20 square metres. She is paying no less than EUR 365 a month. ‘I'll have a talk with my landlord on this matter. If he is going to make a fuss about it, I'll call in the Tenant Support Team to help me!’ Arne van Triest, first year student Business Management, is also paying too much rent. ‘I am paying EUR 240 a month for a room of nine square metres. Each month, I am being overcharged by no less than EUR 104. It's scandalous!’ Since Arne has lived in his room for less than six months, he still has the opportunity to have money refunded retroactively. ‘What a welcome initiative’, said Arne. ‘It will help to exterminate these leeches one by one.’
Do you also believe that you are paying too much rent for your room? Then check out checkjekamer.nl (in Dutch only).
