Belgium MNetters: calculating what you can afford to rent

[bouviergirl]

Hi,

Please could you help me with this question? I understand that in Belgium you can only rent a property for 1/3 of your net monthly salary and that after a year in a job, you start to receive a 13th and 14th monthly salary which bumps up your monthly take-home pay. Therefore, when first looking for a property, do landlords take into account your current net monthly salary, or do they take into account your future (increased) salary in a year's time?

Thanks a lot!

It's a rule of thumb many landlords insist upon but I guess it is up to every individual landlord to decide. It's extremely hard to evict tenants here if they have signed valid 9 year contracts, then if they don't pay, the landlord could be looking at a substantial financial loss.

Every time we tried to rent, we were asked to provide a minimum of the last 3 payslips. Only our current landlord wasn't in the least bit interested in how much we earned.

IF I had to guess, I'd say landlords will NOT take into account 13th or 14th month income, and perhaps it's a good thing. Our family income including our generous child benefit is just over 3 times our rent and I don't think we would financially manage at all if our rent were more than 1/3 of our income.

We're on our third rental in Brussels and never been asked for proof of salary. Natation knows more about this than I would but I don't think everyone does.

Depends what else you plan to do (eg if you plan to pay childcare or school fees) but I would think it unwise to have rent much higher than 1 third salary. Living here (eg groceries, mobile bills, car insurance to name but a few) IMO is extremely expensive and if you're anything like most people I meet you'd want spare cash to get away reasonably frequently ...

We have never been asked for proof of salary either. But I do second Rachel's point that it seems a lot more expensive than the UK now. Our utility bills are ginormous!