Eviction in the Netherlands: the procedure from summons to bailiff

Eviction in the Netherlands is a court-controlled process. A landlord cannot end it himself, and a tenant is rarely put out overnight. Between the first missed payment and the removal van sit a demand letter, a summons, a hearing, a judgment and a bailiff’s announcement. This article sets out that sequence, the timing, the costs and where each side has room to act.

The fundamental rule: no eviction without a court order

A landlord may never evict on his own authority. Ending the tenancy and clearing the property are separate decisions, and both belong to the court. Until a judge has granted an eviction order and a bailiff has enforced it, the tenant may remain, whatever the arrears and whatever the contract says.

He may not:

• change the locks or fit a chain;
• cut off water, gas, electricity or heating to force the tenant out;
• remove, store or dispose of the tenant’s belongings;
• enter the dwelling without consent, whether or not he owns it.

Dutch law calls this self-help eigenrichting, and it is unlawful. The tenant can start an interim injunction (kort geding) and is usually back within days, with the landlord ordered to restore access on pain of a daily penalty payment and liable in tort for the resulting loss. Entering a dwelling against the occupier’s will can also amount to the criminal offence of huisvredebreuk (article 138 Sr). A landlord who changes the locks turns a case he would probably have won into one he will certainly lose.

Two routes: opzegging and ontbinding

Termination by notice (opzegging)

Opzegging is termination of a tenancy of a dwelling by written notice, sent by registered post, on one of a closed list of statutory grounds. They appear in the articles on the ending of a tenancy in Book 7, Title 4, Section 5 BW (articles 271 to 282 BW): that the tenant has not behaved as a good tenant, that the landlord urgently needs the property for his own use (dringend eigen gebruik), that the tenant refuses a reasonable offer of a new contract, and that the property is needed for demolition or redevelopment.

Notice periods run from three months for a tenancy of under a year, rising by a month per further year to a maximum of six. Notice alone ends nothing: unless the tenant consents in writing, the tenancy continues by operation of law until a court decides otherwise, and the landlord must sue. Fixed-term contracts for dwellings were also curtailed by the Wet vaste huurcontracten, in force since 1 July 2024, which restored the indefinite tenancy as the main rule, so a landlord who assumed his contract would expire may be holding an open-ended tenancy.

Dissolution for breach (ontbinding)

Article 6:265 BW provides that every failure in performance gives the other party the power to dissolve, unless the failure, given its special nature or minor significance, does not justify dissolution. For dwellings that power is not exercised by letter: article 7:231 BW reserves dissolution of a tenancy of built premises to the court. The exception is administrative closure of the property, under article 13b of the Opium Act or article 174a of the Municipalities Act, where the landlord may dissolve without going to court.

In arrears cases ontbinding is almost always the route. No notice period runs first, the facts need not fit a closed list, and the landlord can combine the money claim, dissolution and eviction in one summons. The same approach serves for nuisance, unauthorised subletting and cannabis cultivation.

How much is enough? The tolerance threshold

The words “unless the failure, given its special nature or minor significance, does not justify dissolution” are the tenant’s main defence. In its prejudicial ruling of 28 September 2018 (ECLI:NL:HR:2018:1810) the Hoge Raad confirmed how the test works. It is a main rule with an exception: any breach in principle gives the power to dissolve; the landlord proves the breach and the tenant must establish the exception. The exception is not confined to the factors named in the statute — all circumstances may be weighed, including the tenant’s interest in keeping his home, and the court must weigh them even in default.

So one late payment, or a small residual balance, will not produce an eviction order. But there is no threshold in months at which dissolution follows either: no statute, and no national guideline of the courts, fixes one. Arrears running to several months are in practice the point at which landlords sue and at which a claim stands a real chance, yet the figure decides nothing on its own — the court still has to weigh the breach against everything the Hoge Raad requires it to weigh, and it may refuse dissolution on larger arrears or allow it on smaller ones.

Borderline cases turn on behaviour as much as arithmetic: whether the tenant answered the demand letter, whether an arrangement was offered and broken, and whether debt help was sought.

The ordinary procedure, step by step

Tenancy disputes go to the subdistrict court (kantonrechter), whatever the sum at stake, and begin with a bailiff’s summons (dagvaarding). A lawyer is not compulsory, though usual on the landlord’s side and often decisive on the tenant’s.

End to end, an undefended arrears case commonly runs three to five months. Treat that, and every interval in the table, as practice rather than entitlement: apart from the minimum notice period for the eviction itself, none of these periods is fixed by statute. The court sets the date to vacate in its judgment, and the time to a hearing and to judgment follows the procedural rules for subdistrict cases and the workload of the particular court, which the Rechtspraak reports on in its published throughput figures. A defended case, or one in which the tenant keeps to an arrangement, takes longer and often ends without eviction at all.

Provisional enforceability and appeal

An eviction judgment is normally declared provisionally enforceable (uitvoerbaar bij voorraad) under article 233 Rv. This is the point tenants most often misunderstand: an appeal, governed by the articles on hoger beroep including article 350 Rv, does not of itself suspend enforcement. The landlord may evict while it is pending.

A tenant can ask the court of appeal to suspend enforcement, on a restricted test generally requiring a legal or factual error or an emergency the first judge could not weigh. Alternatively he can bring an enforcement dispute (executiegeschil) before the interim relief judge under article 438 Rv, arguing that enforcing the judgment now is an abuse of right. Neither is a re-run of the case. Both presuppose an appeal brought in time, and the period is short: three months from the day of the judgment in an ordinary case, but only four weeks from a judgment in kort geding (article 339 Rv).

The interim injunction route (kort geding)

A kort geding is summary proceedings before the interim relief judge (voorzieningenrechter) under the articles beginning at article 254 Rv. It gives a provisional decision, usually within weeks, but it cannot dissolve a contract. That is the key limit: a landlord cannot obtain ontbinding in kort geding, only an order to vacate.

It is open to a landlord only where the claim is urgent and the outcome of ordinary proceedings is not seriously in doubt — severe nuisance, criminal use of the property, occupation continuing after the tenancy has plainly ended, or occupation without title. A straightforward arrears case rarely qualifies: the tenant’s interest in his home outweighs the landlord’s interest in speed.

For tenants it is at least as useful: it is the instrument against a landlord who has changed the locks, and for halting an announced eviction where circumstances have changed decisively.

Squatters, business premises and occupants without title

Squatters

Squatting is a criminal offence, and there are two tracks: a civil claim by the owner, or clearance by the public prosecutor. In its judgment of 28 October 2011 (ECLI:NL:HR:2011:BQ9880) the Hoge Raad held that eviction on the criminal track is so serious an interference with the right to respect for the home under article 8 ECHR that it requires prior judicial review: the authorities must announce it in writing, allow at least seven days for a kort geding, and await the judge’s ruling, save in exceptional circumstances such as a threat to public safety.

Business premises

Tenants of retail and hospitality premises under articles 290 and following BW have their own regime of terms and termination grounds. Tenants of other business premises — mainly offices and industrial space — fall under article 7:230a BW: once the tenancy has ended and notice to vacate given, the tenant may ask the subdistrict court to extend the period for vacating, and the eviction is suspended while that application is pending. The application must be made within two months of the announced date for vacating, and the court may grant at most three extensions of one year each.

Occupants without title

Someone in the property with no contract — a former tenant’s partner left behind, a guest who will not leave, an occupier under a lapsed anti-squat agreement — has no security of tenure, and these are the clearest kort geding cases. The caution is that an arrangement labelled anti-squat is sometimes held on the facts to be a tenancy, with the protection that brings.

The bailiff, the announcement and the belongings

Only a court bailiff (gerechtsdeurwaarder) may enforce an eviction order, and he is a public official, not the landlord’s employee. He serves the judgment, orders the tenant to vacate, then announces the eviction by a further exploit. Forced eviction is governed by the articles on gedwongen ontruiming, articles 555 to 562 Rv. Article 555 Rv sets a minimum period of three days between that order and the eviction; that short statutory minimum is not the longer voluntary period given in the judgment.

On the day the bailiff may call in the police to gain access and keep order, and a locksmith. The landlord arranges and pays the removers in the first instance, and belongings left behind are taken out. What happens to them is no longer a matter of local practice. The municipality has to take the goods away and store them, at the expense of the party enforcing the judgment, and the rules on administrative enforcement apply to that storage (article 556 Rv, referring to articles 5:29 and 5:30 Awb). Storage runs for up to thirteen weeks, after which the goods may be sold or destroyed; where they are sold the former owner keeps a claim to the proceeds for three years. Goods of no reasonable value to their owner, and anything dangerous or perishable, may go straight away. The costs reach the tenant through the landlord, not through a bill from the municipality.

An eviction can be called off up to the last moment. Bailiffs routinely halt one where the arrears and costs are paid in full, or where an arrangement is agreed and the landlord instructs suspension. But flexibility drops sharply once the removers are booked.

Costs, and who ends up paying

Court fees (griffierecht) in subdistrict cases in 2026 depend on the value of the claim and on whether the claimant is a company or an individual. They run from €139 and €93 respectively for claims up to €500, through €350 and €233 up to €1,500, to €1,504 and €753 above €12,500. Parties of limited means pay €93 in most brackets, and no VAT is charged.

To that add the bailiff’s charges, which are fixed by the Besluit tarieven ambtshandelingen gerechtsdeurwaarders and indexed each January: in 2026, €136.71 for serving an enforceable judgment and €322.59 for the forced eviction itself. Removal, storage and the landlord’s own legal fees sit on top of those tariffs and are not fixed by anything, so the total turns on the size of the property and the state in which it is left.

The losing party pays the winner’s costs, but the Dutch costs order is a fixed-scale contribution, not full indemnity, and normally well below actual legal spend. For the landlord, a successful eviction is often still a financial loss, because the order and the arrears are enforced against a tenant who by definition has no money. For the tenant, losing means arrears, interest, court and bailiff fees, removal and storage on top of finding somewhere to live — and the debt survives the eviction.

Tenants in a vulnerable position

Having children does not give a tenant a right to stay, but it is a circumstance weighed under the exception in article 6:265 BW, and a strong reason for the judge to press both sides towards an arrangement. Courts frequently grant a “last chance” judgment: dissolution and eviction are ordered, but not enforced so long as the tenant meets an agreed schedule.

A tenant admitted to a statutory debt-restructuring arrangement is stronger still, because the moratorium restricts what individual creditors may enforce. Under article 305 of the Bankruptcy Act the landlord may not dissolve the tenancy or evict on the strength of rent arrears that arose before the debt-restructuring arrangement took effect, and an eviction already under way on that old debt is suspended by operation of law. The protection is conditional: the tenant must pay each falling instalment of rent punctually from then on, and a fresh arrears revives the landlord’s power to dissolve and evict. A tenant facing eviction should apply for municipal debt assistance at once; a landlord should check whether an application is already running.

Since 1 January 2021 the Netherlands has run a national early-warning system. Landlords, energy suppliers, water companies and health insurers must report payment arrears to the municipality, without the tenant’s consent, once their own collection efforts have failed. Under the Wet gemeentelijke schuldhulpverlening the municipality must answer every signal with an offer of a first conversation; articles 3 and 4 of that Act require it within four weeks, or three working days where the situation is urgent — an imminent eviction being the standard example. Housing corporations treat outreach as a precondition of proceedings.

Practical guidance

For landlords:

• Never take matters into your own hands.
• Document everything: rent ledger, reminders, the demand letter, offers of an arrangement, dated complaints from neighbours.
• Serve a written notice of default before suing, and let the arrears clearly pass the tolerance threshold rather than suing early and losing on the exception.
• Report the arrears to the municipality where required, and be able to prove it.

For tenants:

• Do not ignore the summons; a defended case is very different from a default.
• Attend the hearing or file a written defence beforehand; it is free and needs no lawyer.
• Apply for municipal debt assistance at once, bring proof to the hearing, and pay something consistently even if you cannot pay everything.
• If the landlord has changed the locks or cut off utilities, take advice the same day.
• Understand that an appeal will not, by itself, stop the eviction.