Legal experts at the RUG have set up a website where anyone suffering from annoying neighbours can get free legal advice. The site was created by professor of public law Michel Vols and lecturer and IT law researcher Laurent Jensma.
The CBS Safety Monitor and the national resident survey both show that 29 percent of tenants and homeowners suffer from obnoxious neighbours – and the number of incidents is increasing.
Personal
People often don’t know what to do when the behaviour of their neighbours disrupts their lives, but the website will you give you advice tailored to your specific circumstances.
You can describe your situation through a series of questions without supplying any personal information. ‘It’s really advanced and a good website’, says Jensma, who helped develop the website. ‘It offers more than six hundred possible permutations.’ When recourse is appropriate, it will point you to the right authority.
Individual questions
Co-creator Vols specialises in disputes between neighbours; people often come to him for advice. ‘But I simply don’t have time to answer everyone individually’, he says – so the website is a ‘tool that truly helps society’.