What is the procedure to move out with Coloc Housing?

The rental agreement has been written with respect to the Brussels co-housing legislation. More info on logement.bruxelles.

Two months notice

A co-housing rental agreement is typically 9 years. As a tenant you can however always leave with two months of notice. Your notice should be submitted through your Coloc Dashboard.

IMPORTANT! These two months notice will start every first day of the following month. According to the Brussels co-housing law:

"Co-tenants who wish to retire early from the co-tenancy, must respect a notice period of two months. The period of notice shall begin on the first day of the month following the month in which notice was given."

For example, if the notice of termination is given on 15 June, the period of notice begins on 1 July.

Looking for replacement

During the first month of the notice period, the departing tenant should have found a replacement or have performed an active and sufficient effort to look for a replacement. This consists in posting your room on a number of internet websites, on various social media groups and organising visits.

IMPORTANT! Ask us to be added to the Dropbox where you will find a list of all Facebook Groups to post in. Only if the departing tenant can prove to have made sufficient effort, the task of finding a replacement is passed on to the landlord, hence Coloc Housing, onwards the second month of the notice period.

According to the Brussels co-housing law:

"For example, the departing tenant may have posted an announcement on several websites, relayed the "vacancy" on social networks, visited the premises or organised meetings between one or more candidates for the takeover and the rest of the group. For the rest, in the event of a dispute, this is a question of fact to be decided by the judge on a case-by-case basis according to his or her assessment."

Website, chat and visits.

When you post your room on Facebook or somewhere else, some people will ask you to visit the room. But to avoid wasting time and putting too much effort in this, make sure to always redirect them first to the website and ask them to apply for the room they want. Please make sure to only organise visits with the applicants on the website, it's a way to check if the person is really interested or not. 

Once someone applied, he will be redirected to the chat and will probably try to contact both you and the property manager there. If you didn't see your unread messages, you will receive a daily digest by email to help you follow up on the situation. 

Don't forget to vote on his application and/or invite him to visit the house and meet the roomies in person or virtually. 

NB: You have all been in the position where you were looking for a room, and you know how stressful and difficult it is to find a room and for most of you, to move to a new city and country. Please, don't leave the applicants without news for weeks or months because they need to know even if it's a “No”. 

Price

When you sign your notice, there might be a new price for your room due to Yearly indexation (you can find the article regarding the yearly indexation in the General section of your House). 

Once you've signed your move out notice, you will receive a confirmation mail and if there is a new price it will be communicated. Please use this new price to advertise your room on Facebook. 

This also happens when your roommate leaves and you want to take over his room 

Room change

Your roommate leaves his/her room and you want to take over the room? It's totally possible but you must know that all those steps above need to be done as well, the price can also be different and your roomies can refuse if they vote against your application. 

The only difference is that your roomie won't have to find a replacement but we believe in solidarity so we hope you guys will help each other.