This article is originally published on the website of Huurgenoot. We think you should read it.

Questions are asked at Huurgenoot and !WOON about people who have seen that lead plumbing is still in use in their homes.

They did report to Stadgenoot, but measurements were not taken during the lockdown by Stadgenoot. Lead water pipes count as a defect at the rent committee, which means that the rent increase is stopped. To this end, it must be demonstrated that the lead content in the drinking water is too high according to the standards of the RIVM

Stadgenoot gives tenants where the lead content in the drinking water is too high, according to Stadgenoot's measurement, a discount of 20% on the rent. If Stadgenoot has not had a measurement taken by itself, but the tenants have established that the water pipes are made of lead, the tenants will not receive that reduction in rent.

Those tenants can report to a !WOON office and, together with !WOON, enter into a procedure to stop the rent increase in any case. This also requires a measurement of the drinking water, but it is in any case carried out as quickly as possible. However, these procedures take time.

Fortunately, Stadgenoot is starting up the measurements again. Huurgenoot would like all tenants to have healthy and safe drinking water and hopes that the problems with lead water pipes will be over by the end of the year.