Propel: PROactive Policymaking for Equal Lives

📆 We just finished our campaign, where we outlined 30 findings in 30 days on the tenant experience in Luxembourg. Using two new data sources, we found tenants struggled with finding housing that they considered affordable based on their income, in navigating problems arising from the condition of the dwelling, in understanding the legality of rent increases, among other problems.

🔍 Across problems, several themes emerged, including lack of tenant awareness of regulations, tensions in the tenant-landlord relationship, and more acute problems for vulnerable households.

📊 We used different data sources with different methodologies, but found many of the same problems echoed across both data sources. Our findings are not generalizable to the whole population, but they provide depth to the experiences of almost 300 tenants, many of whom were seeking to become aware of and exercise their rights.

🎯 Tenant-facing organizations can aid this process by providing well-timed information campaigns as well as templates for tenant correspondence to landlords. Tenant associations are sometimes the first point of contact, and can act as a connector to other social and legal services.

❗️We checked our findings with an analysis of an additional 150 tenants to confirm the consistency of problems identified in the report. But future research is needed! Such areas could include a representative look at the full tenant population as well as a study on the experiences of landlords and other rental market actors.

Our report was commissioned by a tenant protection association (Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU) and funded in part by the Ministère du Logement et de l'Aménagement du territoire and the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) under the PROPEL project hosted at the University of Luxembourg.

Interested in the full report? Find it here:
🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

What solutions exist for the most pressing problems of unaffordability and dwelling condition problems?

🔍 Focus group participants suggested individual-level coping strategies and policy-level changes without any prompting from the facilitators. This indicates, at least among our participants, the existence of public opinion in this area. Among the policy solutions, they mentioned regulatory changes and increasing the social housing stock. Among individual coping-strategies, participants indicated moving to a less expensive area, including a neighbouring country. Future studies could check the generalizability of sentiments and views in our focus groups.

To address the additional burden felt by economically vulnerable households, tenant-facing organisations could dedicate specific resources to the problems affecting vulnerable households most acutely, raise awareness about existing benefit programs, and directly connect tenants to the broader network of social organisations.

Interested in the full report? Find it here:
🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

We are a group of researchers working to communicate our findings to the broader community. Follow along as we outline key results from our recent report on the tenants’ experience in Luxembourg.



Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU | University of Luxembourg

What causes tension between landlords and tenants?

🔍 Our data indicate a number of pressure points in the tenant-landlord relationship. These revolved around several issues, including dwelling conditions/repair responsibility, deposit restitution, rent increases, and early termination. As with lack of tenant knowledge, pressure points might be eased with greater tenant awareness of regulations. But in addition, tenants might benefit from templates they could use in formal correspondence to their landlords, as well as from greater transparency on behalf of the landlord in key areas, such as itemized proof of any deposit deductions.

Our data come from correspondence between tenants and a tenants’ protection association and focus groups exploring everyday experiences in the private rental market.

Interested in the full report? Find it here:
🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU | University of Luxembourg

We are a group of researchers working to communicate our findings to the broader community. Follow along as we outline key results from our recent report on the tenants’ experience in Luxembourg.

How can tenants' knowledge about their rights be improved?

🔍 Based on the empirical findings of our study, tenants in Luxembourg's private rental market often lack adequate knowledge of their rights and the relevant legislation. To improve awareness, tenant-focused organisations could strengthen the link between the body of rental regulations and renters who need the information about those regulations. For instance, they could create easily accessible leaflets and other information sources outlining tenants’ rights in each of the main problem areas identified in this report. Such information, however, must be carefully crafted using recommendations developed from research on information processing.

Interested in the full report? Find it here:
🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

We are a group of researchers working to communicate our findings to the broader community. Follow along as we outline key results from our recent report on the tenants’ experience in Luxembourg.



Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU | University of Luxembourg

How aware are tenants of the rental market rules?

🔍 Our report shows that tenants in Luxembourg's private rental market often lack information about their right and duties, leading to misunderstandings and disputes with landlords. Recurring doubtful and unclear issues for tenants include the conditions behind annual rent increases, the restitution of deposits, the rules around landlord-initiated termination, the monthly charges that landlords could legally pass on, and the dwelling's repairing responsibilities. Even when information is available through dedicated governmental websites, tenants struggle to access or understand it.

Interested in the full report? Find it here:
🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU | University of Luxembourg

We are a group of researchers working to communicate our findings to the broader community. Follow along as we outline key results from our recent report on the tenants’ experience in Luxembourg.

What do satisfied tenants say about the private rental market in Luxembourg?

🔍 Although a less common feeling, a positive feeling of satisfaction emerged from our focus group discussions. Seven tenants out of 32 participating in the focus groups were mostly satisfied with the quality of their dwelling (about 22%). This feeling primarily stemmed from participants who had easily found an apartment or were satisfied with the quality of their accommodation.

Interested in the full report? Find it here:
🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU | University of Luxembourg

We are a group of researchers working to communicate our findings to the broader community. Follow along as we outline key results from our recent report on the tenants’ experience in Luxembourg.

Do tenants feel secure in the rental market?

🔍 Insecurity appears as the second most recurring feeling from the focus groups' we conducted with tenants in Luxembourg's private rental sector.

Insecurity has been identified as a sense of “fear” and “anxiety” mostly caused by the precarious housing situation they experience. It is connected to perceived powerlessness to address an undesirable housing situation and the inevitability of continued negative conditions.

Interested in the full report? Find it here:
🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU | University of Luxembourg

We are a group of researchers working to communicate our findings to the broader community. Follow along as we outline key results from our recent report on the tenants’ experience in Luxembourg.

What are tenants’ feelings about their housing situation?

🔍 Participants in our focus groups expressed a range of feelings when discussing these issues. Building on prior research, we identified and mapped participants’ feelings about their self-perceived housing status, security conditions, and trust relationships. A sense of 'unfairness' for the perceived improper treatments and low protection standards emerged as the dominant feeling among tenants during the focus groups' discussions.

Interested in the full report? Find it here:
🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU | University of Luxembourg

We are a group of researchers working to communicate our findings to the broader community. Follow along as we outline key results from our recent report on the tenants’ experience in Luxembourg.

Why Luxembourg?

🔍 Luxembourg shares unaffordability challenges with other European countries, but some characteristics, like population growth and a concentrated land ownership structure exacerbate the challenges. Our data point to the cascading nature of unaffordability, for instance when tenants did not exercise their rights becasue of a perceived lack of other rental options. Rental prices for newly advertised contracts have risen faster than existing contracts, a trend that hampers affordable mobility.

Interested in the full report? Find it here:
🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU | University of Luxembourg

We are a group of researchers working to communicate our findings to the broader community. Follow along as we outline key results from our recent report on the tenants’ experience in Luxembourg.

Why Tenants?

🔍 Similar to other European countries, tenants in Luxembourg spend a greater share of their income on housing costs. They more commonly experience housing deprivation and worse dwelling conditions. Our data align with these country-level findings.

Moreover, tenants are in a unique position. As we describe in our report: “A primary goal of tenants is consumption – that is, living in a unit – while a primary goal of landlords is investment, or in other words, receiving income from a unit. When functioning well, the contractual relationship between tenant and landlord can generate desirable outcomes for both parties. However, the associated interactions are prone to misunderstanding, conflict, and potential non-compliance on both sides of the relationship.”

Interested in the full report? Find it here:
🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU | University of Luxembourg

We are a group of researchers working to communicate our findings to the broader community. Follow along as we outline key results from our recent report on the tenants’ experience in Luxembourg.

For our campaign, we are highlighting 30 key findings in 30 days from our recent report on the tenant experience in Luxembourg. We’ve just finished describing the key challenges tenants faced when exiting the lease agreement. Here’s a recap: the most common problem involved the return of the deposit, followed by landlord-initiated terminations. These were present in both data sources, but ranked very high in the correspondence. Other problems revolved around terminations initiated by the tenant or evictions initiated by the landlord.

These insights come from correspondence with a tenants' protection association and focus groups exploring everyday experiences in the private rental market.

Next up: how tenants feel about the problems they face, overarching themes, and recommendations.

Interested in full report? Find it here:
🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU | University of Luxembourg

We are a group of researchers working to communicate our findings to the broader community. Follow along as we outline key results from our recent report on the tenants’ experience in Luxembourg.

Do tenants encounter difficulty ending their leases early?

🔍 While landlord-initiated termination was more common in the data, some correspondence revolved around reported problems or questions during a tenant-initiated termination. The issues typically revolved around a lack of mutual agreement about the timing of ending a lease early, finding a replacement tenant, and confusion around the lease itself.

🇬🇧 https://doi.org/10.25517/419j-v029
🇫🇷 https://doi.org/10.25517/6710-ye50

Mieterschutz LU / Défense des locataires LU | University of Luxembourg

We are a group of researchers working to communicate our findings to the broader community. Follow along as we outline key results from our recent report on the tenants’ experience in Luxembourg.