Apartment owners must be able to install solar panels or add insulating glass without the permission of the occupants. The Homeowners Association wants the rules to be changed accordingly. The representative of the community of owners then foresees chaos.

One in six homeowners lives in a home where they have to deal with roommates over renovation plans or other matters. In a community of owners or VVE, plans are discussed and meetings held, for example on sustainability plans.

“At the moment it is regulated that for small VVEs you need unanimous approval for these big sustainability measures,” said Valeska Hovener from the Vereniging Eigen Huis in the newspaper this morning. NOS Radio 1 News.

“Of course you can stick draft strips in your apartment yourself, but what you are not allowed to do is to insulate your cavity wall or attach insulating panels yourself or solar panels on your roof and so on.” You now need the approval of the VVE for this, says Hovener.

conflict of interest

Research conducted by the Home Owners Association among a thousand homeowners within a VVE shows that one in three respondents cannot agree with their roommates on sustainability. This argument is used by most respondents when asked why there are no sustainability plans.

According to Hovener, there are a variety of reasons roommates may object to sustainability plans. As an example, she cites an owner who is getting on in years and no longer wants to invest in a hybrid heat pump because this investment will only pay for itself years later.

“Or that there is someone who says: I want to move within five years, so leave this investment to the next owner. These can all be reasons why people don’t want to make that investment. Or simply because you can’t afford it, of course that’s also possible,” says Hovener.

chaos

The project goes too far for the representative of the community of owners. “Now you’ve actually taken the whole association out of the game,” says Kees Oomen of Vve Belang im NOS Radio 1 News. “They go against the entire system as it currently applies.” He believes that decision-making rules should be relaxed and that a majority should be enough to get a permit, for example. But he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to file a complaint without the consent of the VVE.

“This association is responsible for the maintenance of the building, and now suddenly there are parts in it that people can do themselves. I foresee some kind of chaos,” he says. “The chaos lies in the fact that in one apartment there is glass from the owner because he installed it himself. In the other apartment there is glass that is properly in the deed, so it belongs to the co-owners.”

Suppose an apartment with the owner’s glass is sold, Oomen sketches, and the glass turns out to be not so well placed, then the new owner calls the association. The club say they are not responsible for it because the previous owner placed it, but the deed says window frames are the club’s responsibility.

charging stations

You have to organize a lot for that, says Oomen. A simple majority is a good alternative for him.

The homeowners’ association wants approval from the owners’ association to no longer be required and for the notification to be sufficient. There are conditions for this, says the association. For example, there must be rules about how solar panels are distributed on a common roof and who has to pay for what in the event of damage. The cabinet is working on a similar plan for installing charging stations.