Compulsory construction expertise of a house when buying is not actually carried out

From February 1, 2018, the purchase and sale agreement contains a clause on the mandatory assessment of the technical condition of the house. However, in practice, it is carried out in no more than a third of the cases. This follows from a study conducted by Bijn.nl, which specializes in advice and support in the housing market. Their research showed that the number of inspections carried out practically did not increase from that moment.

To check how this is being implemented in practice, Bijn.nl looked at a sample of 651 purchases and found that only 26 percent of the cases were verified at the conclusion of the sales contract. The director of the company, Arnaud Corbijn, explains this by the shortage in the housing market. Sellers have the ability to choose a buyer and, accordingly, they can easily bypass those who insist on an examination.

This is very annoying for PvdA MP Henk Neybur. He believes that buyers should be better protected and encourages realtors to give every consumer a fair opportunity to buy a home. “Realtors push buyers and sellers against each other. I believe they should not weaken the position of buyers, discouraging them from carrying out construction expertise ”. Says Henk.

Ger Jarsma, Chairman of the Dutch Association of Real Estate Agents, admits that inspections are not always carried out due to too much market demand. But he says that it also happens that home buyers who are no more than fifteen years old themselves say this home is so new, it is unlikely that there will be any problems. I will save on building inspection costs.