Shared accommodation in Belgium: what to do when the landlord refuses to carry out interim inventories and wants to charge us for damage caused by previous tenants

Hello,

I am seeking your advice regarding a somewhat complicated rental situation in Belgium.

A year ago, I moved into a shared apartment. The lease had already begun a year and a half earlier (it is a three-year lease). An addendum was signed so that I could replace a departing roommate. When I arrived, the landlord came to give me the keys but left immediately, saying she was in a hurry. She simply told me that I could do the move-in inspection with the remaining roommate.

This roommate was not in the apartment at the time and was not due to return for another two months. So I did the inventory on my own, listing the various defects and taking photos to document the situation. The apartment has hardwood floors everywhere, including in the kitchen and bathrooms. These floors are neither sealed nor waxed, so even the slightest drop of water soaks into the wood and leaves a damp spot. The kitchen floor is therefore covered in old stains, which I photographed and mentioned in the inventory.

When my roommate finally returned to the apartment two months later, he signed the inventory. I then sent it to the landlord, but she never signed it or even commented on it.

Life then went on as usual. The landlord told us that she would not be renewing the lease when it expired because she wanted to stop renting to roommates in order to avoid having to deal with amendments.

A few weeks ago, my roommate left and was replaced by a new roommate. A new amendment was therefore signed. As this meant that by the end of the lease there would be no tenants left who had been there since the beginning, I insisted that the landlord come and inspect the condition of the apartment. The idea was simply for her to take note of any damage that was already there, so that we would not be charged for it at the end of the lease. It was also an opportunity to draw up a proper inventory for the new roommate, signed by everyone.

After several reminders, she finally agreed to come, but told me explicitly that it “pissed her off” and that she had “better things to do.” When she arrived at the apartment, the visit went very badly. She started screaming when she saw the stains on the kitchen floor, then went around the apartment criticizing various damages that had “never been reported” to her, even though they were listed in the inventory I had sent her the previous year. She claimed that we had failed in our obligations as tenants and continued to shout throughout the visit. She then left without carrying out an inventory. When we asked her what we should do, she simply told us to do an inventory ourselves and send it to her, just as we had done when I arrived.

After this episode, she told us that, given the damage caused by the previous tenants, she would have expenses to cover. To compensate for this, she decided to index the rent to inflation, which had never been done since the beginning of the lease. In concrete terms, this represents an increase of around $100 per month.

Another issue that I find problematic is that when I moved into the apartment, the landlord asked me to pay the security deposit directly to the outgoing tenant to simplify matters. In other words, no amount was ever deducted from the previous tenants' security deposit for any damage.

I am now concerned that the landlord may attempt to charge us for damage that existed prior to our arrival and refuse to return my security deposit (two months' rent) at the end of the lease.

I have several questions. What can I do to protect myself in this situation? Can a landlord be forced to carry out an inventory when a new roommate moves into the apartment? If we carry out an inventory ourselves and she refuses to sign it or even look at it, does it have any value? Finally, I have been advised not to pay the last two months' rent to compensate for the security deposit, which I will probably not get back. Is this a good idea legally, or could it backfire on me?

To give you an idea of the kind of dialogue we have with her: when I wrote in the inventory that part of the apartment was dirty when I arrived (describing the stains in detail, with photos), she replied word for word: “Why did you write in the inventory that it was dirty? When something is dirty, you clean it instead of writing about it.”

Thank you in advance for your advice!

TL;DR: I moved into a shared apartment in Belgium during the lease. The landlord never does an inventory when there is a change of tenants, asks us to do it ourselves, then ignores it or refuses to sign it when she receives it. The landlord plans to charge us at the end of the lease for damage caused by previous tenants.