Dutch Building Survey: Before the Bid or After, and the NHG Rule

The house is from 1932 and described as well maintained. The mortgage guarantor may still want the report.

A bouwkundig rapport is the technical inspection of a Dutch home. Under the 2026 conditions of the Nationale Hypotheek Garantie, NHG, the national mortgage guarantee, a lender must have one when the appraisal shows urgent deferred maintenance costing more than 10 percent of the market value, when more investigation is needed, or when the condition is poor.

The estate agents' association NVM lists the survey among the standard conditions that let a buyer withdraw.

When is it compulsory?

When the appraisal says so, for a guaranteed loan. Section C.5.2.1 of NHG's Voorwaarden en Normen 2026-1 requires a bouwkundig rapport when one of three situations appears in the taxatierapport: deferred maintenance that must be repaired quickly, where the average of the appraiser's estimated direct costs is more than 10 percent of the market value free of use and occupation; a need for further structural investigation; or a poor structural condition. On a home valued at 400,000 euros that threshold is 40,000 euros of urgent repairs, which is our arithmetic on NHG's rule.

Section C.5.2.2 sets the conditions the report must meet. The author must be a municipality, Vereniging Eigen Huis, or a building firm registered with the Chamber of Commerce; must be independent of the purchase, sale, brokerage, appraisal and financing; must use NHG's Model Bouwkundig Rapport when it is a building firm; and the report may be no more than 12 months old. Under C.5.2.3, when the report finds maintenance that must be repaired at once, the consumer is obliged to have it carried out, and NHG treats that as a quality improvement of the home.

What must the report show?

Three cost lines, priced as if a contractor did the work. NHG's Model Bouwkundig Rapport separates direct noodzakelijke kosten, the cost of immediately necessary repairs; op termijn noodzakelijke kosten, the cost of repairs needed within 5, 10 or 15 years on the basis of an attached maintenance plan; and kosten voor verbetering, improvements priced from a plan or a quotation. The model requires the indications to be stated separately, based on contractors' prices rather than do-it-yourself work, including VAT, and on repair rather than full replacement where repair is possible. It also requires the inspector to note where a specialist investigation or an inspection of hidden parts is needed.

Those three lines are the reason the report is worth reading even when NHG does not require it. The listing's phrase "well maintained" is not a number; the report's first column is.

Before or after the bid?

Either, with a different job each time. The NVM's guide to buying describes the bouwkundige keuring as an independent inspection giving insight into the technical state of the house and its maintenance in the short and long term, says the result can be used in the negotiations, and lists the bouwkundige keuring among the most common ontbindende voorwaarden, the conditions that let a buyer withdraw from the purchase agreement if the outcome fails a set criterion.

Ordered before the bid, the report prices the offer. Ordered after, it must be written into the koopovereenkomst as a condition, with the threshold that triggers withdrawal, or it protects nothing. A bid without the condition and without the report is a bid on the seller's adjectives.

Which costs does the tax office let you deduct?

The appraisal and the guarantee, on its published list. The Belastingdienst's list of deductible costs for an owner-occupied home names the taxatiekosten incurred to obtain the loan and the costs of applying for the Nationale Hypotheek Garantie. The bouwkundig rapport is not on that page, so we do not claim it is deductible.

We do not give buying advice. What NHG's conditions and the NVM's guidance support is this: a guaranteed loan triggers the survey at 10 percent of value in urgent repairs, the report must price repairs in three separate lines at contractor rates, and the survey is only a protection when it sits in the contract as a condition. AiMYNDi reads the bouwkundig rapport with the listing and puts the direct and future costs next to the asking price. An example of what a report looks like shows the layout, and the 8 percent transfer tax on a second home covers the other number that changes the sum.