Hundreds of students must leave their Zuidas studios after all
At least 190 students who read in the media last week that they could stay an extra year in the Student Experience student complex at the Zuidas must now leave after all. At the same time, their rooms will soon become available for new tenants: “This feels unfair.”
Last week started with good news for students in the 800 temporary residences of Student Experience at the Zuidas. The municipality announced that the building – which was to be cleared from August for demolition – could remain standing for another year. In various media outlets and in a press release from the municipality of Amsterdam, residents of the student complex read that they could continue living in the building until July 1, 2027.
But the enthusiasm and relief residents felt at the time were short-lived for some. Students with a temporary contract received a message from the landlord three days later. It contained an apology for the early media coverage, a brief explanation that the contract could not be legally extended, and the blunt conclusion: “The end date of your contract therefore remains unchanged.”
Two types of contracts
That a large group of students must now prepare to clean out and vacate their studios seems to be related to the different contracts that Student Experience offered at the Antonio Vivaldistraat location. Students with a campus contract – anyone who signed before October 2024 – can stay. Students who moved into the building from October 2024 onward, however, received a temporary lease with a fixed end date: August 31, 2026. That second group of students was told that their contracts could not be extended.
According to Dutch law, a landlord may only offer a temporary rental contract once. Extending such a contract automatically turns it into a permanent lease. For the landlord, this has negative consequences: tenants with a permanent contract gain, among other things, legal protection. For Student Experience, this would mean they might have to provide suitable, comparable housing for all students or go to court to evict tenants from their studios – without any guarantee of success.
“New studios available”
UvA student Tvarita Khandelwal is one of the students who must leave their home this coming August. To his great disappointment: “My rent is currently around 880 euros. Realistically, it will be very difficult to find something at a similar price. I have to reckon that I’ll be paying an extra 5,000 euros per year in rent. On top of that, given the current housing market, I will probably need a rental agent. And all the while, I keep getting automated emails saying that new studios are available in my building. That’s obviously very strange.”
According to Khandelwal, a WhatsApp group has been created for students who must leave the Student Experience location at Antonio Vivaldistraat. The group now has 191 students.
Unfair
Another student, who prefers to remain anonymous, says the main issue is the communication and the unexpected situation. “In theory, nothing changes for me: I knew I had to leave in August, and that is still the case. But now that the building is staying open and new tenants will be moving into my room, it just feels unfair. They’re basically kicking us out.”
She explains that she understands the legal difficulties but says they are open to many solutions: “We could, for example, move to another studio in the same complex. We would still be considered new tenants. Or we could get priority in the allocation for the available rooms. But there doesn’t seem to be room for that.”
In the letter students received from Student Experience, the landlord stated that it had “in consultation with a lawyer” looked for alternative ways to allow students to stay longer, for example by offering another residence. The company says, however, that it runs into legal limitations.
“Extremely unfortunate”
The municipality stated that it is “extremely unfortunate” that “some students have been told that they cannot remain in their current residence.” At the same time, it emphasizes that by extending the lease, 800 student rooms remain available for an additional year: “And we therefore call on the landlord to allow as many current students as possible to stay.”
Student Experience replies: “We recently received the positive news from the municipality confirming that we can stay on the location a bit longer then initially agreed. While this is a great news for students, unfortunate it can not apply to everyone due to the legal restriction related to short term contracts. In fact, we can not offer the students with a temporary contract a second temporary contract. Doing so would mean creating automatically an indefinite contract under the Dutch law. Which is not feasible for our situation due to the fact that Zuidas is going to be dismissed eventually. After thoroughly investigating with our lawyers, we had to come to the conclusion that this legal restriction limits us and therefore we can not provide this specific group of students any other solution.”
The name of the anonymous student is known to the editorial team.
Update February 24th, 15.00: Student Experience's response has been added to this article.
