Moving In With a Housemate You Met Online: What to Settle First
You found them in a group chat, through an app or on a Facebook group. They write well, the room looks fine and you are tired of searching. This post is about the hour between "I think this works" and handing over a key, and which questions are worth that hour.
Where a point comes from an official page we name it. Where it is our own advice we say so.
1. Treat the first message the way you would treat any listing
The Fraudehelpdesk's list for finding a room applies to a person offering you one. Contact only online, no way to see the place, money asked up front, a price that is low for the area: those are its signs of fraud, and it adds that they are not always present. Its steps are practical. Search the name or address with "review", "klacht" or "oplichting". Open the street on Google Street View. Run the photos through Google Images or Yandex. If there is no way at all to see the place before you pay, it says not to go ahead.
It also warns that a viewing can be staged: a home rented for the week, or a friend's room borrowed. So go back at another time of day, and try to speak to someone who lives there now. If anyone asks for a copy of your ID before you have seen anything, the Fraudehelpdesk lists that among scammers' requests.
2. Meet twice
This one is ours. Meet once in the house, and once somewhere else, a coffee or a call. People are easier to read the second time. Ask the questions you would ask at a hospiteeravond: how they live, noise, guests, cleaning, cooking, how they handle money. Our post on running a hospiteeravond as a house has a list.
3. Find out whose name is on the lease
Ask to see the lease, or at least the first page. You are looking for two things: the name of the landlord, and whose names are on it.
Juridisch Loket separates two cases. With samenhuur, two or more people are named as tenants, for example when you live with friends. You are then together responsible for the agreements in the lease, and as long as your name is on it you stay a tenant, even if you live somewhere else. With medehuur, only the main tenant is named. If you are not married to the main tenant or in a registered partnership with them, you only become a medehuurder if the landlord agrees.
Which one you are walking into changes what you owe and what you can leave. If you are moving into a room in someone else's lease, our post on subletting a room covers the landlord's consent.
4. Do not pay a deposit to a person you only know from a chat
Our advice. If a deposit is part of the deal, pay it to an account in the name of the person who signs with you, only after you have seen the room, the lease and met the person. Keep the messages. This is the same rule as in our post on room scams, and it fits a housemate as much as a landlord.
5. Register the address properly
Gemeente Utrecht says that if you move in with someone, you need consent from a resident aged 18 or over, given on a Verklaring van inwoning, which you can attach to the online move report or hand in on paper. It also says that a move can affect, for example, your toeslagen or studiefinanciering. For what that means for a housemate, see our post on registering at a room.
6. Put the first month in writing
Our advice again, and we should be exact about what it is. We did not find a rule that gives housemates a legal trial period, so we do not claim one. What you can do is write, between you, that the first month is a trial, what happens to shared costs if either of you stops, and who tells the landlord. A written house agreement binds only the people who sign it and cannot change the lease, as our house rules template says. It is worth having because it makes you both say the awkward things on day one.
Where Vond fits
We start with Roommates. Vond opens soon in Utrecht, and the first thing that opens is a way to find people to live with. A Roommates profile describes a person: how they live, when they get up, how they feel about guests. It has no field for rent, address or availability. It is free in beta. Join the waitlist for Roommates.
For rooms that appear on Vond, we speak to whoever is letting the place and build the listing with them. We do not verify identity, we do not check a register on your behalf, and there is no verification badge on Vond. A profile here deserves the same six steps as one anywhere else.
General information, not legal advice. Sources: Fraudehelpdesk, Juridisch Loket on medehuur and samenhuur, gemeente Utrecht on reporting a move.