How to Run a Hospiteeravond as the House (Utrecht)
Someone is moving out. In a few weeks there will be an empty room, and the house has to choose who moves into it.
Nearly everything written about hospiteren is written for the candidate: what to wear, what to say, how not to be the last one to leave. We wrote one of those ourselves. This piece is for the other end of the sofa. For the house that has five strangers on its sofa one Wednesday at half past seven, and has to choose afterwards.
Most of what follows is our own advice, not a rule. Where there is a rule, the source is next to it.
First: who actually decides?
Before you write an ad, agree with the landlord how the room will be let. It sounds formal, and it shapes the whole evening.
Does the house choose, or does the landlord? In many houses the owner leaves the choice to the residents. That is called coöptatie, and where it is set up that way, it is an arrangement with the landlord. Ask how it works in your house, and preferably in writing. According to the Dutch minister for housing and spatial planning, hospiteren does not conflict with the Wet goed verhuurderschap; the act only sets conditions on how it is organised (answers to parliamentary questions, 19 January 2026).
The landlord's duties do not go away. Since 1 July 2023 the Wet goed verhuurderschap (article 2(2)(a)) requires a landlord or letting agent to do three things: run a clear and transparent selection procedure, use and communicate objective selection criteria when the room is offered publicly, and give the rejected candidates the reasons for choosing the tenant they chose. Those duties do not disappear because the owner leaves the choice to the residents. What it means for the candidate is in our hospiteren guide. For the house it means something practical: write down what you are choosing on, because the landlord has to be able to explain it.
Is it a room from a student-housing provider? Then that organisation's rules apply. At SSH, the residents choose the new housemate together after the evening. SSH invites the 15 to 25 candidates with the most registration time, and the house tells SSH the next morning who it picked (SSH help centre, read 11 October 2026). In new SSH buildings there has been no hospiteren since September 2024; registration time decides there (DUB, 16 September 2024). So check what the landlord prescribes before you organise anything yourselves.
The ad: describe the house as it is
An ad that says you are "social but also quiet" gets replies from people who are social but also quiet. That is everyone.
Write down what a candidate needs to rule themselves out:
- Who lives there. How many of you, study or work, the language spoken at home.
- What the house is really like. Do you eat together, and how often? Is there a cleaning rota, and does anyone stick to it? How often are there guests? Does anyone stay over? Pets, smoking on the balcony, where the bikes go.
- The room and the terms. Size, when it is free, for how long, and the rent and what it does or does not include (service costs, gas, water, electricity, internet), as the landlord has given it.
- Whether you can register at the address. You must register at the address where you live (see registering at your Utrecht address). If that is not possible at yours, find out why before you offer the room.
- How to reply and when the evening is. One date, one time, and a request to say in a few lines who you are and how you live.
Put the practical terms at the top. Anyone who cannot make the rent or the date does not need to write, and you do not need to read it.
Inviting: read the messages for what is in them
A room in Utrecht often gets more replies than you can meet (DUB). Inviting is already choosing, and it happens on the strength of a message of a few lines.
Our advice:
- Agree in advance what you are looking for. Pick points that were in the ad: the date, the length of stay, whether someone fits the house life you described. Those are also the criteria the landlord has to be able to communicate.
- Have two of you read them. One person reading every message picks people who resemble that one person.
- Do not invite more people at once than you can talk to. With four to six candidates per round, everyone gets a real conversation. With ten, it is a conveyor belt. With more candidates, run several short rounds; SSH calls that a kringverjaardag, next to the borrel (everyone at once) and the speed date (one at a time).
- Send a short message to everyone you do not invite. One sentence is enough. Someone waiting three weeks for an answer is missing other rooms in the meantime.
The evening: short, with everyone home
Make sure everyone is home. Whoever was not there has no say afterwards about someone they never met, and will have one anyway.
An hour and a half is enough. Agree a start and an end time and put both in the invitation. A candidate may have a second hospiteeravond somewhere else that night.
Show the room, then sit down. Showing the room takes a few minutes. You get to know each other in the living room.
Ask about ordinary life. The questions that say something about someone as a housemate:
- What does a weekday look like? When do you get up, when are you home?
- Do you cook, and do you like eating together or alone?
- How often do you have guests, and do they ever stay over?
- What do you do when the washing-up has been standing for three days?
- What are you looking for in a house, and what do you not want?
Do not ask about religion, origin or orientation. Religion, origin, orientation, a relationship, health: it says nothing about the washing-up and it shuts people out for who they are. Meant as a joke, it still does not come across as one on the sofa. One student told BNNVARA (2024) she was asked about her sexual orientation at her own hospiteeravond; later, at an evening her own house held, candidates were asked about it again and about contact with the police and justice. In a study for SSH (Regioplan, 2022), students name the question "where are you, or your parents, really from?".
Consider holding the evening in English. A house that says "Dutch-speaking house, English is fine for the evening" can also choose from candidates who do not speak Dutch (yet), and the candidate knows where they stand.
What the law says about who you choose
This is general information, not legal advice.
- Dutch equal-treatment law, the Algemene wet gelijke behandeling, also applies to private people who offer a room publicly, for example with an ad anyone can read (article 7 lid 1).
- It has an exception for lettings of a private character, but only when three conditions are all met, and that exception never covers race (article 7 lid 3).
- According to the College, a "No internationals" ad is prohibited in principle. A residents' preference at hospiteren can fall under the exception, depending on the facts, and setting different requirements for different candidates strengthens a presumption of discrimination (College voor de Rechten van de Mens, 1 September 2022).
- The minister wrote in January 2026 that residents may sometimes set further requirements, for example on gender, but may never select on origin or skin colour, and that the landlord must tell the residents so.
For the house it comes down to the advice above: choose on how someone lives, on points that were in the ad, and keep those points the same for everyone.
Deciding: the same night, on the same points
Decide the same night. A day later nobody remembers who talked about the guitar and who talked about the climbing gym.
Discuss every candidate on the same points, the ones you agreed beforehand. Otherwise the conversation drifts by itself towards "who did you like", and that is exactly the conversation in which a friend of someone's friend wins.
Agree how you decide. A vote, a veto per housemate, or talking until you agree. Which one matters less than agreeing it before the evening.
Be honest about friends. If a friend of a housemate is coming too, say so to each other and to the landlord. It is your house, but four other people cleared an evening for it.
Write down why, in one sentence. For the person you chose and for everyone else. The landlord needs that sentence for the reasons it must give, and you will be glad of it later.
The message to whoever was not picked
This is the part houses often skip.
SSH's page only says the chosen candidate will hear from the house; it says nothing about the others, and NOS described the "never hearing from them again" back in 2016. So send everyone a message within a few days. Short, honest, and without pretending it was a hard choice between five perfect people. For example:
Hi Sam, thanks for coming round on Wednesday. We chose someone who cooks and eats at home more often, because we do that together a lot. Good luck with the search, and if you want a tip for a house that fits better, just ask.
That is one reason, on a point that was in the ad, saying nothing about who Sam is. Whoever gets that message knows where they stand, and it costs you two minutes.
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 you live, when you get up, how you feel about guests. It carries no price, no address and no availability: a profile has no field for any of them. It is free in beta. A house cannot use it to fill a free room.
For rooms that come onto 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, and there is no verification badge on Vond, so read every profile with the care you would give a stranger's message anywhere else.
The waitlist is at vond.house.
The short version
Agree with the landlord who chooses. Describe the house as it really is, so the wrong people rule themselves out. Invite as many as you can talk to, ask about ordinary life and not about religion, origin or orientation, and decide the same night on the points you agreed beforehand. Then send everyone a message.
That message is the last thing a candidate sees of your house.