Students will be paying an increase of approximately 25 to 30 euros a month due to the rising energy prices. Housing corporations are therefore advising their tenants to increase the advance amount they pay for heating and electricity.
‘We always adjust the advance amounts on July 1’, says Eefje Keuper with Lefier. The corporation is only allowed to make this change once a year. ‘However, in reality, the prices increased on January 1’, she says.
The advance the students are paying will be compared to the actual costs around April. If the costs are lower than what they paid, the students will get money back. But if they’re higher, the students will have to pay the difference. ‘To prevent them having to pay through the nose when 2022 is settled up, we’re strongly advising them to increase the advance they’re currently paying’, says Keuper.
Advice
The average amount is estimated to be 25 euros a month. But Keupers says it could be different for each student house. Currently 337 of Lefier’s 2,756 tenants have followed their advice to increase the advance they pay.
Housing corporation Nijestee advised its tenants to do the same. ‘It sucks if it turns out you have to pay extra on your energy bill’, says Jan Jaap Vogel with Nijestee. ‘Unfortunately, we can’t influence the gas prices, so we have no choice.’
He doesn’t know how many students have increased their advance. Many of Nijestee’s tenants pay their own energy costs, which means they’re responsible for negotiating the contract.
Extend
One of these tenants is international business student Daisy Blijdorp (21). She lives with four roommates. Last week, they had to decide whether to extend their contract or switch to a flexible tariff. Because of the current energy crisis, their costs have gone up considerably.
‘The cheapest option still led to an increase of 30 euros per person. We didn’t even take sustainability of the energy company into account, even though we would have preferred to’, says Daisy. ‘We were all pretty shocked. It increases the rent for the smallest room with 10 percent, which is quite a lot.’
In luck
The only students who are in luck, it seems, are SSH tenants. Only 150 out of its 1,300 tenants will be paying higher energy costs.
‘We negotiated fixed heating costs for the next five years for most of our properties, so the price increase won’t impact their service costs’, Madelon van Gameren with SSH explains. SSH doesn’t know how much the costs will rise for the remaining students.