When (re)renting residential property, the landlord statement is now a widely used document. The landlord's statement is also regularly used when (re)renting business premises.
What is a landlord declaration?
As the word suggests, a landlord's statement is issued by the landlord of a property to the tenant. The landlord declaration states whether the tenant has paid the rent on time and whether there have been other forms of default by the tenant. You can think of unauthorised subletting, nuisance, illegal practices in the property and the like.
The tenant can present the landlord declaration to the landlord when the tenant wants to rent a new property. In practice, many property landlords now make the presentation of a (positive) landlord's declaration a condition for renting a property.
Legal basis
The landlord declaration is an invention of (letting) practice. But there is no legal basis for the landlord declaration. This means that the (old) landlord is not obliged to issue a landlord's statement to the tenant (or to the new landlord). But also that the tenant is not obliged to provide a landlord's statement to the (new) landlord.
Failure to submit a tenant's statement, when requested by the new landlord, can of course result in the property passing by the tenant's nose, especially in the current housing market. There is then little to be done legally, except when the tenancy agreement has already been concluded, for instance because the lease has already been signed.
It is understandable that landlords see the landlord declaration as an opportunity to avoid bringing in tenants who have previously caused problems. But a tenant who has partially suspended payment of rent, in connection with disputes with a landlord over, for example, a rent increase, whether justified or not, maintenance arrears, or the like, may face problems for years to come due to a landlord's statement indicating that rent arrears have occurred.