Member(s) of Government responsible for this response
Nawal Ben Hamou
Secretary of State of the Brussels-Capital Region, responsible for Housing and Equal opportunities
Response
This proposal is in line with existing
measures or upcoming legislation.
Explanation
Regional support measures in housing are fundamentally inclusive and not intended for a specific demographic group. Every Brussels resident has access to them, provided they meet the income and family conditions required to qualify for most of these support measures.
These measures are therefore not discriminatory in terms of the origin or nationality of applicants. Consequently, newcomers to the Brussels Region and other Brussels citizens are treated equally.
Setting up a rental guarantee, which is consistently required by landlords, can be a major problem for many tenants in Brussels, including international Brusselers. In response to these situations, the Housing Fund (Fonds du Logement / Woningfonds) has been given a regional mandate to provide assistance in setting up a rental guarantee.
Assistance in setting up a rental guarantee can be provided in two ways:
- The grant of an interest-free consumer credit with a maximum repayment period of 24 months (which may not exceed the term of the lease) after verifying the solvency of the applicant, who must not be in default of payment of an amount equal to or greater than €1,000 under another consumer credit or mortgage loan;
- The concession of the BRUHWA Fund, which provides an alternative credit for families with debt problems and those with income levels that do not allow them to repay a credit in up to 24 months who, in return, pay a monthly contribution of between €5 and €31.
Since 2022, a reform of the legal framework aims to open the latter support scheme to new target groups that were excluded from it in the following way:
- Enabling unaccompanied foreign minors to qualify for assistance;
- Removing the requirement for applicants to sign a lease of at least one year and removing the requirement to be domiciled in the property (for example, many students sign 10-month leases for the academic year from September to June);
- Opening up rental guarantee assistance to all households with taxable income within the mortgage access scales of the Housing Fund, with the exception of under-35s, who benefit from higher income ceilings.
Further information:
https://fonds.brussels/nl/huurwaarborg
Legislative references:
- 10 NOVEMBER 2022. – Order of the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region amending the Order of the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region of 28 September 2017 on the organisation of regional assistance in the composition of housing rental guarantees
- Order of the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region of 28 SEPTEMBER 2017 on the organisation of regional assistance in the composition of housing rental guarantees.