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We are proud to announce that our colleague, Iris Keemink, was officially sworn in at the Rotterdam District Court on Friday, January 9, and has thus started her career as a lawyer. It was a special and festive moment that she was able to celebrate in the presence of family, friends, and colleagues. After more than a year of gaining valuable experience at our firm with great enthusiasm and dedication, she is now taking this exciting next step.

Within our firm, she will continue to deepen her knowledge of corporate law and civil procedural law, under the guidance of her mentor Lennart Hordijk.

We congratulate Iris on this milestone and look forward to her further development within our team.

Remote working from abroad sounds like an attractive, modern solution to many employers and employees. As long as the work is done well and everyone is satisfied, there seems to be little cause for concern. But there is a legal catch: if you allow this for long enough, it can become a permanent employment condition. The employer can then no longer simply reverse this with a new policy.

This is evident from a recent ruling by the Midden-Nederland District Court.

What happened?

An employee worked for a Dutch employer and moved to Ecuador with his family in 2020. The idea was that he would work partly there and partly in the Netherlands, with annual evaluations. It was explicitly agreed in the arrangement with the employee that if anything changed in the employer's personnel regulations, this would also apply to the employee. Due to COVID-19, the employee stayed in Ecuador longer than planned. From 2022 onwards, he worked mainly from Ecuador. 

In 2023, the employer introduced a new workation policy. Working abroad on a structural basis no longer fitted in with this policy. The employer therefore informed the employee that working from home in Ecuador would be phased out and that he would have to return to work in the Netherlands. The employer argued that working from Ecuador had never been intended as a permanent arrangement and that it did not constitute a condition of employment. Furthermore, the employment contract stated that Zwolle was the place of work and did not include any provisions for working abroad on a permanent basis.

The employee argued that working from home in Ecuador had become an acquired right. The employer had not objected to this for years, thereby giving the employee a legitimate expectation that this would continue to be possible in the future. The employee took the matter to court and won the case.

The court stated that an employment condition does not necessarily have to be agreed upon when concluding an employment contract. An employment condition can also arise as an acquired right from a course of conduct followed after the conclusion of the employment contract. The court also looked primarily at the practical situation. The employee had been working largely from Ecuador for years, with the employer's consent. Moreover, the agreed annual evaluations were not (or hardly) carried out. Another factor was that the employee performed well and had completely organized his family life around living and working in Ecuador. According to the judge, the employee was entitled to assume that the agreements on working from home in Ecuador would continue and that the new policy did not apply to him. Furthermore, the agreements about working from home in Ecuador had been made in mutual consultation and after advice from HR. These agreements were put in writing and added to the employee's personnel file.

According to the court, this was no longer a temporary exception, but a permanent way of working. Working from home in Ecuador had become part of the terms and conditions of employment.

The employer was also unable to successfully invoke the unilateral amendment clause in the employment contract. The judge found that the employer did not have compelling reasons to justify such a radical change. In this case, the interests of the employee outweighed those of the employer.

What does this mean for employers?

This ruling is primarily a wake-up call for employers who generously allow flexible working without clear frameworks. With good agreements, genuine evaluation moments, and clear documentation, you can prevent flexible policies from turning against you.

If you have any questions about your flexible working policy, please contact Dennis Oud, Tessa Sipkema, or Elke Hofman.

It is a subject that lawyers are frequently asked about: the principle of trust. Citizens and businesses often regard a statement made by a civil servant as a commitment to, for example, grant an environmental permit. If an environmental permit is ultimately not granted, this often causes a great deal of incomprehension. After all, hadn't it already been promised that a development or plan could be carried out? Even when the principle of trust is explained, a negative outcome remains difficult for many citizens and businesses to accept.

That feeling of injustice is even more pronounced when the promise is made not by a civil servant, but by the responsible alderman. That was the case in a ruling by the Gelderland District Court on December 30, 2025. In this case, a project developer wanted to build a house on an agricultural plot without a building area. He thought he had come up with a clever construction that would still allow building on the plot. The adjacent plot had an outbuilding that had been used as a home for years. According to the project developer, this use would fall under transitional law. The idea was to demolish the outbuilding and, as it were, transfer the existing residential function to the adjacent plot, where a new home would then be built.

Months of consultation between the project developer and the municipal executive followed. Ultimately, the municipal executive indicated that it did not wish to cooperate with the plan. The project developer disagreed and submitted a permit application for a deviation from the zoning plan. The municipal council refused to issue the necessary declaration of no objection because it did not wish to cooperate with the project developer's plan. Partly because of this refusal by the municipal council, the municipal executive rejected the permit application.

The project developer then lodged an appeal, partly because he believed that the principle of legitimate expectations had been violated. During the exploratory discussions prior to the permit application, aldermen and civil servants had allegedly given positive signals, which had led the project developer to believe that the permit would be granted. The declaration of no objection should therefore not have been refused.

The court ruled that the appeal based on the principle of legitimate expectations was unfounded. In this case, the refusal to issue a statement of no objection was in itself sufficient grounds for not granting the environmental permit. The statement of no objection is a power vested in the municipal council. The municipal council is not bound by any commitments made by an alderman, because the alderman is not part of the municipal council, but of the executive committee. The municipal council therefore did not act contrary to the principle of trust by refusing to issue a statement of no objection, contrary to any commitments made by the alderman. 

What does this mean in practice? Never simply assume that a statement made by a civil servant, or even an alderman, can be attributed to an administrative body. This will prevent you from raising expectations that cannot be fulfilled. 

You can read the ruling here. 

In practice, it may happen that the transfer of a property suddenly cannot go ahead because a mortgage that has never been deleted is still registered in the public registers. The reason for this is sometimes surprisingly simple: the mortgage was taken out on behalf of a company that no longer exists. As long as that registration remains in place, transfer or refinancing is effectively impossible. This raises the question of how this can be resolved so that the property can still be transferred on time, thereby avoiding a contractual penalty.

Broadly speaking, there are two possible routes. The first is to reopen the dissolved company so that liquidation can still take place and the mortgage can be canceled. However, this is a process that takes a lot of time and money and is often undesirable in practice due to the transfer deadline. The second option is to have the mortgage declared worthless, so that the registration loses its meaning and can be canceled.

In many cases, the latter route is more in line with the need to cancel the mortgage quickly, but this route also has its pitfalls. After all, the mortgage holder no longer exists, the company has been dissolved and deregistered from the Chamber of Commerce, and there is no liquidator or successor who can cooperate. Sometimes, the (sole) director has also passed away. Although the mortgage no longer has any material significance, it formally remains in place and continues to apply in relation to third parties.

From a legal perspective, this immediately raises questions. A mortgage does not automatically disappear from the register and, as long as it remains registered, it constitutes an obstacle to the transfer of the property. But how can you bring proceedings against a counterparty that no longer exists? In principle, this leads to inadmissibility and the case will not be assessed on its merits by the court. 

In practice, this problem is often solved through summary proceedings. However, before a court can declare a mortgage worthless, it is essential that the status of the mortgage is carefully investigated in advance. The mere fact that a company no longer exists does not automatically mean that the mortgage no longer has any value. In practice, it must therefore be ascertained whether there are still creditors who may have an interest in the mortgage. The manner in which the company was dissolved is also important. In the event of bankruptcy, a trustee may have been involved in the liquidation of the estate and may be able to determine whether or not there are any outstanding rights or claims. Only if this thorough investigation shows that there are no longer any entitled parties and the mortgage no longer serves any purpose can it be stated with sufficient certainty that it is indeed worthless.

What is striking is that in cases such as these, the court is prepared to look beyond the formal objections. Although procedural law does not in principle offer a solution for proceedings without an opposing party, it is recognized that strict application would lead to an undesirable and practically untenable situation.

The court therefore gives considerable weight to the factual circumstances. If it is plausible that the company has definitively ceased to exist, that there are no longer any interested parties and that the mortgage no longer has any real significance, the request for a declaration of worthlessness may be granted. Even if there is no opposing party, the court will still proceed to a substantive assessment and may declare the mortgage worthless. 

These issues are therefore a good example of the practical side of the law prevailing over the technical legal side. The court will then rule that your request is inadmissible, but will declare the mortgage worthless. In this way, you can still deliver the property on time without incurring unpleasant penalties. 

Do you need help canceling a mortgage? Please contact Lennart Hordijk or Erwin den Hartog.

It's so easy: an employee gets a one-year contract, the year is over, and you simply extend it “one more time.” Practical, flexible, and everyone can continue. However, in labor law, “one more time” is not endless, not even for people of retirement age. The chain provision determines how often and for how long temporary employment contracts may follow each other. And if you exceed the maximum term or the maximum number of contracts, the temporary nature of the contract automatically changes into something you may not have intended: a permanent employment contract.

That is exactly what is happening in this case. The employee had been working for the employer since October 5, 2016 (after reaching retirement age) and was always given a fixed-term employment contract for one year. The last contract expired on July 31, 2025. After that, the employer assumed that the employment relationship would “simply” end due to the expiry of the term. The employee was no longer scheduled to work, did not work anymore, and was no longer paid.

The employee raised the alarm, and due to the chain provision, a permanent employment contract has now been created. After all, nine years had passed! Although the ruling does not mention this, an exception to the standard chain provision (three contracts and a maximum of three years) applies to employees who are eligible for state pension, namely a maximum of six contracts for a maximum of four years. And what the employer is doing now has nothing to do with a “termination by operation of law,” but is a termination. The employee is claiming fair compensation because, in his opinion, the termination is contrary to the law.

The subdistrict court judge goes back to basics: is this still a fixed-term employment contract, or has the chain provision resulted in a permanent employment contract? The employee points out that he has been receiving annual contracts for years. The employer even acknowledges that the chain provision would “in principle” mean that a permanent employment contract has now been created.

However, the employer then tries to find a way out via sector rules. This case concerns education: the employee was a teacher in the International Transition Class and was not formally qualified to teach. The employer argues that the Secondary Education Act 2020 and the collective labor agreement VO 2024-2025 stipulate that unqualified teachers cannot be employed on the basis of a permanent employment contract. In other words: “Yes, chain provision, but in our case that is not actually possible.”

The subdistrict court judge did not agree. According to the subdistrict court judge, the chain provision is an essential labor law protection rule (and is also included in the collective labor agreement). That rule cannot be set aside by an industry provision that is primarily concerned with optimizing the quality of education. The message is clear: it is up to the employer to apply the rules in such a way that they are complied with. If this is not properly organized, it cannot be passed on to the employee.

Because the employer gave notice, stopped providing work and paying wages after July 31, 2025, and the employee stopped performing work, the subdistrict court ruled that this constituted termination. Because this termination was in violation of the law, it is unlawful and the employee is entitled to fair compensation, which the subdistrict court judge set at € 15,000 gross, slightly more than five months' salary including vacation pay. This is how long the employment contract would have continued if it had not been unlawfully terminated.

Think of the chain provision as a kitchen timer: if it runs too long, “temporary” automatically changes to “permanent,” and that realization often comes at the most expensive moment.

Finally, the bill “more security for flex workers” is still under consideration. One of the proposed changes concerns the chain provision. If the bill is passed, the interval between successive employment contracts will be extended from 6 months to 5 years. Something to keep an eye on.

Do you have any questions? Please contact Tessa Sipkema, Elke Hofman-Bijvank, or Dennis Oud.

You can read the ruling here.

For many municipalities, finding housing for migrant workers is a topical issue. Housing policies are increasingly being drawn up that regulate and often restrict the letting of rooms and the housing of migrant workers. These restrictions in particular are a regular topic of discussion. This was also the case in a ruling by the Administrative Law Division of the Council of State on December 10, 2025.

This case revolved around the ‘Halderberge 2021 Umbrella Plan’. With this plan, the Halderberge municipal council sought to regulate the housing of migrant workers and seasonal workers and prevent them from settling in residential areas or recreational facilities through room rentals. For this reason, the plan included a ban on room rentals, but also two exceptions, one of which related to seasonal workers and the other a general exception for room rentals.

The discussion in these proceedings revolved around the question of whether the Umbrella Plan was compatible with Article 15 of the Services Directive. More specifically, the question was whether the plan rules were discriminatory. The Division ruled that the problem did not lie in the existence of a ban on room rental per se, but in the fact that the municipality had set up a specific exemption route to allow the accommodation of seasonal workers.

Although the term “seasonal worker” sounds neutral, the assessment framework for the Umbrella Plan showed that it mainly concerns migrant workers from EU countries, particularly Central and Eastern Europe. The municipal council has also acknowledged this. Based on established case law of the Court of Justice, the Division rules here that the plan rules are indirectly discriminatory. According to the Division, it is difficult to explain why renting rooms to a seasonal worker would be different from renting rooms to a Dutch citizen, which gives it a discriminatory character.

Do you have a question about room-by-room rentals and/or housing for migrant workers? Please contact Gerard van der Wende or Fleur Huisman.

You can read the ruling here.