Existing housing stock: how to improve the building quality

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the improvement of the quality of the housing stock. Parts of the housing stock in Dutch cities do not meet the modern preferences of urban households and do not have sufficient housing quality. Improving this, demolition followed by new construction and renovation of the housing stock is necessary. The current instruments are not appropriate to improve the quality of the housing stock. Consumers and local authorities lack insight into housing quality and building regulations seem to be a barrier for the improvement of the housing stock. Solutions for these problems may be found in a proposal made by the Dutch Ministry of Housing. The proposed building file describes the quality condition of buildings and functions as a maintenance manual. It could support homeowners in fulfilling their responsibility for the quality of their dwellings and local authorities to develop quality policy. This paper describes the first results of recent research into the role of the Dutch Building File within the Dutch set of instruments to improving the quality of the housing stock; it compares the Dut ch approach to comparable instruments currently in use or being developed in other European countries.