Why Your Neighbours Have a Say in Your Own Home
You’ve finally found it, a flat in Amsterdam-Noord, or perhaps a solid 1970s apartment block in Eindhoven. You’ve got plans. Perhaps your plans include renovating the kitchen, knocking down a wall, or undertaking a long-overdue bathroom renovation. You’re the owner, so naturally you assume you can get started as soon as the ink dries on the notarial deed. Then someone mentions the VvE. And suddenly, renovation feels considerably more complicated.
What Actually Is a VvE, and Why Does It Exist?
The Vereniging van Eigenaren, or VvE, is a legally required owners’ association that exists in every Dutch apartment building where individual units have been split into separate ownership. It isn’t optional, and you can’t dissolve it on a whim. Every apartment owner automatically becomes a member the moment they purchase a unit, and the VvE is responsible for managing everything that falls outside the boundary of your own front door – the roof, the foundations, the stairwell, and the communal heating systems.
In theory, it’s an elegant solution. When you share a building with twenty other owners, someone has to make decisions about the shared parts. In practice, it can feel like governance by committee, which, in fairness, is exactly what it is.
The VvE operates through a set of foundational documents: the splitsingsakte (the deed of division) and the splitsingsreglement (the division rules). These two documents, drawn up when the building was originally split into individual units, are effectively the constitution of your building. They define what belongs to each owner, what’s shared, and crucially, what you’re allowed to do without asking anyone’s permission.
The Splitsingsakte: The Document That Controls Everything
If you own an apartment in the Netherlands and you haven’t read your splitsingsakte, you really should. It’s not light reading; notarial documents rarely are, but it contains genuinely important information about your renovation rights.
The splitsingsakte maps out which parts of the building are privégedeelte (private sections, i.e. yours) and which are gemeenschappelijke gedeelten (common parts, belonging to everyone). The boundary isn’t always where you’d expect it to be.
Outer walls, load-bearing interior walls, the space between floors, pipes running through your flat that serve other units — these can all be classified as communal property, even if they’re physically inside your apartment. Touch them without permission, and you’re in breach of the rules that govern the entire building.
This matters enormously when you’re planning a verbouwing (renovation). Removing a wall, laying underfloor heating, or replacing a bathroom can all stray into territory that requires explicit VvE toestemming verbouwing, formal approval from the association, before a single tile comes off the floor.
When Do You Actually Need VvE Permission?
This is where it gets genuinely complicated, because the answer varies from building to building.
Work That Almost Always Requires Approval
- Structural changes – removing or altering load-bearing walls
- Changes to shared pipes or electrical systems – even if they run through your unit
- External alterations – new windows, balcony enclosures, satellite dishes
- Anything affecting sound insulation between floors, particularly relevant in older Dutch apartment buildings with wooden intermediate floors
- Adding a bathroom or kitchen in a different location to where it currently sits
Work That’s Usually Fine Without Permission
- Painting interior walls
- Replacing non-structural partition walls
- Replacing flooring – though regels VvE aanpassingen appartement may require minimum sound insulation standards
- Replacing kitchen units in the same location without touching pipework
The tricky middle ground – and there’s plenty of it – usually comes down to how your specific splitsingsreglement is worded. Some associations use a model splitsingsreglement, a standard template issued by the Royal Dutch Notarial Association (KNB). These templates have been revised several times – the main editions being from 1973, 1983, 1992, 2006, and 2017 – and each version carries subtly different rules around owner permissions and responsibilities. If you don’t know which edition applies to your building, ask your VvE beheerder or check your original purchase documents. It makes a real difference in practice.
Shared Costs: The Part Nobody Talks About Enough
Here’s something that catches plenty of apartment owners off guard. Your VvE doesn’t just have a say in what you do inside your own flat. It also controls the collective purse, and you contribute to it whether you renovate or not.
Every VvE member pays a monthly contribution into the reservefonds (reserve fund), which is meant to cover major maintenance and repairs to shared parts of the building. Since 2018, Dutch law has required VvEs to maintain a minimum reserve of at least 0.5% of the building’s rebuilding value each year. This requirement was still in force as of early 2025; if you’re reading this later, it’s worth checking whether the threshold has been revised via overheid.nl.
In practice, many smaller and older VvEs spent years under-funded and are still working to close that gap — which is worth keeping in mind if you’re buying into a building with deferred maintenance.
Gedeelde kosten VvE renovatie — shared renovation costs — are distributed among members according to the breukdeel (fractional share) specified in the splitsingsakte. This isn’t always proportional to floor area. A ground-floor flat might carry a larger share of lift maintenance costs in one building, and a smaller share in another, depending entirely on how the original notary structured the division.
When a major renovation decision comes before the VvE, a new roof, replacement of communal heating, or external wall insulation, it goes to a vote at the algemene vergadering (general meeting). Decisions typically require either a simple majority or, for larger expenditure, a qualified majority (often two-thirds), again depending on the reglement.
Foundation Repair: The Most Complex VvE Decision of All
Of all the shared costs that can land in a VvE’s lap, funderingsherstel (foundation repair) is the one that tends to cause the most anxiety. And understandably so.
The Netherlands has a genuinely unusual relationship with its foundations. Vast swathes of the country sit on soft, peaty soil, and a significant proportion of older Dutch buildings were built on wooden piles. Those piles, driven into the ground in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, were designed to stay permanently underwater. When groundwater levels drop (often due to drainage or drought), the tops of the piles dry out, rot sets in, and the building gradually loses structural integrity.
Foundation problems in the Netherlands are not rare. Amsterdam alone has been estimated to have tens of thousands of buildings with some degree of foundation concern, figures that have appeared in various municipal and research reports over the years, though the precise numbers are revised periodically as survey methods improve. If you want the most current assessment, the funderingsloket (funderingsloket.nl) is the best starting point, it’s the national information point specifically set up for foundation issues in Dutch housing, and it’s updated regularly. Cities like Rotterdam, Gouda, and Dordrecht face similar challenges to Amsterdam, given their comparable soil conditions.
For a VvE, funderingsherstel is the renovation equivalent of open-heart surgery – expensive, disruptive, and unavoidable if the problem is serious enough. Based on industry figures from 2023–2024, costs typically ranged from roughly €40,000 to well over €120,000 per property, depending on the method, scale, and location. Given construction cost inflation in the Netherlands over recent years, those figures are likely to be higher in 2026 – getting up-to-date quotes from qualified contractors is essential before any VvE vote on the matter.
The decision to proceed and how to finance it sits with the VvE. Some municipalities have historically offered loan schemes to help owners cover their share of foundation repair costs. Amsterdam, for example, ran a subsidised loan programme for funderingsherstel that was active in the early 2020s. Whether similar support is available in your municipality in 2026 is worth checking directly with your gemeente, as these programmes change in scope and funding availability. The Funderingsloket website is again a useful first stop.
The administrative and human complexity of getting twenty or thirty apartment owners aligned on such a significant spend remains formidable regardless of financing options; that part hasn’t changed.
Practical Tips for Getting VvE Approval
If you’re planning a renovation that needs VvE toestemming, here’s what tends to make the process smoother:
- Read your splitsingsakte first. Know what’s yours and what’s shared before you call an architect.
- Submit a written request to the VvE board or administrator well in advance; decisions are typically made at the general meeting, which may only happen once or twice a year.
- Provide detailed plans. A vague request for “some building work” will be met with a vague or flat response. Architects’ drawings, structural calculations, and contractor details all help.
- Address noise insulation proactively. This is the most common source of objection in flat renovations. If your plans involve new flooring or bathroom relocation, show how you’ll meet or exceed the required insulation standards under the current bouwbesluit (Building Decree).
- Get the decision in writing. Verbal approval at a meeting isn’t enough. Make sure the minutes reflect it clearly, and ideally, obtain a signed statement from the board.
- Don’t start without permission. VvEs can – and do – require owners to undo unauthorised work at their own expense. It’s an expensive lesson that comes up more often than you’d think.
When VvEs Don’t Work Well
It would be dishonest not to acknowledge that VvEs vary enormously in quality. A well-run VvE with a professional beheerder, a healthy reservefonds, and engaged members is a genuinely effective management structure. A dormant or dysfunctional one, and there are many, can leave a building in serious disrepair while members argue, disengage, or simply ignore correspondence.
Dutch legislation introduced in recent years has tightened reserve fund requirements and created clearer mechanisms for municipalities to step in when a VvE is visibly failing its maintenance obligations. Enforcement in practice, however, remains uneven – and the burden of pushing a reluctant VvE into action often falls on whichever owner cares most, which is rarely a comfortable position to be in.
If you’re considering buying into a building and the VvE records look thin, the reservefonds balance looks low, or nobody seems to know when the last general meeting was held – treat that as a serious warning sign, not a minor administrative quirk.
To Summarise
The VvE is not a bureaucratic inconvenience; it’s a legal structure with real teeth, and understanding how it works is essential before you start knocking walls about in your Dutch apartment. The splitsingsakte defines what you own, the vergadering decides what gets spent, and the reservefonds determines whether the building can actually afford what it needs.
Get it right, and the VvE system works well. Ignore it, and you risk not just fines or legal disputes but also the kind of structural problems, foundation rot, communal neglect, and unresolved disputes that can seriously affect the value of your home.
