More people are being banned from living in their own homes because the property has been attacked with firework bombs, according to new research by Trouw.
In 2024, new local legislation gave mayors more powers to temporarily close homes or business premises that had been targeted. Since then, closures have tripled, from 46 in 2023 to 160 a year later, data requested from national land registration Kadaster showed.
In half of these cases, the reason was an explosion, with illegal prostitution, shootings or guns on the premises making up the other half. Homes and premises are usually shuttered for a month.
The closures are meant to reassure the inhabitants who have been faced with a bomb attack in their street or neighbourhood. Last year, some 1500 attacks or attempted attacks took place in the Netherlands. Some were criminal tit for tats, others private revenge attacks. In almost all cases, the attackers used powerful fireworks.
“Mayors were desperate for more powers because the old law only gave them permission for closures if the offence took place inside the house,” professor of public order law Michael Vols told the paper.
However, closures also mean that landlords, including housing corporations, can tear up tenancy agreements, even if the tenants are not involved in an alleged crime, and without the say-so of a judge, leaving them homeless.
According to lawyers acting for tenants, mayors are too quick to decide to shut premises down, acting on ad hoc police reports. A relative with a criminal record is often enough to go ahead with a closure, they said.
Sometimes the device is meant for another house but tenants are left without a home all the same, despite a clause in the law that says permanent eviction should not automatically follow.
“In practice, some housing corporations ignore that clause, and that is not the way the law was meant, ” Vols said.
In Rotterdam, evicted tenants even end up being blacklisted, effectively denying them the right to social housing,” Rotterdam lawyer Mark de Kok said. Mayors have to take into account that tenants may be evicted permanently when they decide to close down a house.
“Think about providing temporary accommodation and the impact on children,” Vols said. “But local councils often don’t have the capacity for such tailored solutions.”
