Increasingly, property owners choose to outsource the management of their properties. There is often no proper definition of what is for whose account, with costly and sometimes irreversible consequences. The main cause of this problem are the often unclear drafted agreements between owners and property managers. When you’re renting out your property; Do you choose management agreement or tenancy agreement? Read more down below.

Lease or management agreement?

The title of the agreement is not decisive for the qualification of the agreement. This is also evident from a 2019 case. Here, the parties had called the agreement agreed upon between them a “rental agreement for living space”. A specific clause granted the tenant/manager the right to sublet the premises. When the property owner wanted to terminate the lease, the tenant/manager invoked rent protection. (As if he was a regular tenant).

If this appeal succeeded, the tenant/manager could continue to sublet the rooms for an indefinite period of time. Both parties referred to the agreement as a “rental agreement,”. However, the actual performance of the agreement led the Court to come to a different conclusion. They stated that the agreement could not be classified as anything other than a management agreement. The tenant would have rent protection if the court had ruled that there was a rental agreement. This would have made it more difficult for the property owner to terminate the rental agreement.

Company as resident

In a similar case, the District Court of Amsterdam ruled that there was a management agreement with, among other things, the consideration that a private limited company could not even occupy a property as a tenant.  This made it legally impossible to speak of a tenancy agreement, contrary to what the parties had agreed.

Notices to the administrator

(Non) given announcements can also lead to a discrepancy between the tenant, landlord/manager and property owner. In a case from 2012, the tenant believed that the manager had given him permission for a large-scale renovation. The manager in turn defended this. He was stating that the tenant could not even assume that he was authorized to give permission for large-scale renovations. The Court of Appeal of Amsterdam did not go along with the manager’s defence. The claimed that giving permission for a major renovation does indeed fit in with a manager’s job. The tenant was therefore entitled to assume that he was allowed to carry out the large-scale renovations.

In addition, the tenant thought he had permission to sublet the rooms. The court ruled that even if the manager had said that he gave permission for subletting, the tenant should not, in principle, have trusted that the owner had entrusted the manager with such powers. Such a communication concerns exploitation of the property, and one can not consider this to be part of the management by the manager.

Conclusion

These cases are frequent. They are also good examples of why it is important to draft an agreement between manager and property owner carefully. It is important to prevent a property owner from the confrontation of major renovations of his premises by the tenant. As well as the prevention of subletting by the tenant or a manager suddenly invoking rent protection.

If you have any questions regarding renting out your property, please do contact us.