Exchange students permitted to terminate room lease prematurely

Most students living in accommodation such as the Hatta Building have contracts requiring them to pay rent until the end of August, but the university is giving them permission to leave before that.

Students who are studying in the Netherlands for less than a six months and who are renting a room from the SSH student accommodation association in Rotterdam are free to terminate their lease agreements with immediate effect, if they so choose. Normally, they would be held to the terms of their lease until the end of August.

SSH rents out student rooms in several halls of residence, including the Hatta Building on the Woudestein campus. Some exchange students only arrived in Rotterdam in February, so they did not have much time to enjoy their six months in Rotterdam. The university will be closed until at least 6 April, and may well remain closed for quite a while after that. Moreover, many students have been asked to go home by their own governments.

Loss of rental income

It is not clear yet who will bear the financial brunt if the rooms vacated by the exchange students should remain unused. According to an SSH spokesperson, SSH and the university have yet to discuss this matter.

The university has called on all its students who are currently studying abroad to return home. It has not yet made a decision on foreign exchange students currently residing in the Netherlands.