Abstract: The Dutch housing system is sometimes regarded as a bastion of strong rental controls and secure tenancies, a marked contrast to highly liberalized markets like Australia’s. Yet beneath this veneer of protection the growing Dutch private rental sector knows a systematic non-enforcement of rental regulations. This paper explores how this pervasive non-enforcement is made possible. It specifically considers how robust tenant protections are being actively mediated and rendered inert by PropTech. The paper analyzes theoretically how landlord power is mediated through platform design itself to obscure and normalize practices of exploitation, including discrimination and the charging of excessive rents. The paper’s analytical foundation rests on a poststructuralist understanding of digital technologies, leveraging the concept of the ‘politics of appearance’ (Ash, 2013). This framework reveals platform architecture as an agent that actively governs what is visible or concealed from users, exploiting structural non-enforcement, and misguiding the liberal conception of contractual freedom and tenant action.

This paper is based on a mixed-methods investigation. It integrates secondary quantitative data on rental listings from major platforms in Rotterdam (2016-2022) with a UX walkthrough of the two largest interfaces (Pararius, Huurwoningen.nl). The quantitative data shows that non-compliance is concentrated not in marginalized areas, but rather in more competitive neighborhoods. It is driven primarily by small-portfolio private landlords. The subsequent walkthrough exposes how specific design features, including liability disclaimers, the omission of required regulatory information, and ‘Scarcity Indicators’, actively manufacture an atmosphere of market urgency and diffuse regulatory accountability.

About the speaker: Daan Bossuyt (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Spatial Planning at Utrecht University’s Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning. His work investigates the governance, institutions, and politics shaping urban development, focusing primarily on how planning systems address the critical challenges of sustainable and affordable urban housing. His research explores two core themes. The first is the politics of urban property, analyzing how competing values (degrowth, commons) may become selectively institutionalized into property regimes, planning systems, or land policy. The second concerns the transformation of housing systems through digital and data-driven systems, and the potential of alternative housing models (like cooperatives or modular housing) to foster urban sustainability. He serves as an editor for disP: The Planning Review.