Why the annual servicekosten statement blows up your inbox every year

It's late May and you've just sent out the annual servicekosten (service charge) statements. Three weeks later, it starts. A tenant calls at eleven in the morning: he doesn't understand why the window cleaning costs more than last year, and could you perhaps explain what "CAI depreciation" actually means. Halfway through the call, a second call comes in from someone in the same building with practically the same question. Your inbox holds six new messages about the statement, all sent between 10pm and midnight.

This isn't a coincidence, and it won't improve by wording things more clearly next year. The pattern you're seeing now is exactly the pattern that researchers at Woonbond (the Dutch tenants' association) and figures from the Huurcommissie (Dutch rent tribunal) have been showing for years.

The pattern behind the peak isn't in your statement

A Woonbond survey of 501 members found that only 42 percent of tenants say they are fully well informed about the service charges they're being billed for. That means almost half aren't. Among commercial landlords, the share is even bigger: 29 percent say they don't even receive an annual statement, even though it's a legal requirement. Among woningcorporaties (housing associations), that figure is 19 percent.

So what lands in your inbox in June isn't a reaction to your specific statement, it's a reaction to a general lack of rhythm and explanation across the sector. Once a year, the tenant receives a document full of abbreviations and amounts that he suspects he's obliged to pay but can't actually check. The Huurcommissie handled more than 4,100 new cases in 2024, up from 3,800 in 2023, and a large part of that rise is in service charges. For you, that means: even when your figures are correct, you'll get the kind of question that arises because the tenant has been told, somewhere else, that it's normal to be suspicious.

And this year, something is added that reinforces the pattern

From 1 July 2026, the Wet modernisering servicekosten (Act on the Modernisation of Service Charges) comes into force. The current non-exhaustive list becomes an exhaustive list: whatever isn't on it will no longer be allowed to form part of the service charges. For the statements over 2025 that you're sending out now, that means nothing legally, because they fall under the old rules. But the tenant who reads about it online sees a statement with line items that, according to that article, will soon no longer be allowed. And that's when he sends that email at 11:47pm.

So the question that comes in during June is no longer just a process question ("is this amount correct?"). It becomes an expectations question ("will this still be allowed?"). You answer the first question by pulling up the receipts. The second takes more time, because the tenant is looking for reassurance about the future.

What makes the difference in the week before

The inbox that fills up in June can't be fixed by answering better. The gains are in the week before you send. Three things work in practice.

A heads-up two weeks in advance, short and addressed personally. Not a generic mailing, but a message stating when the statement is coming, which period it covers, and where the tenant can look up their own advance payments. The effect is that tenants start preparing instead of being caught off guard.

A breakdown per line item in the statement itself, not just a total. So not "cleaning: 287 euros", but "cleaning of communal areas (Cleaning Company X, invoiced 22 times a year): 287 euros". A tenant who can see where a figure comes from asks the checking question less often. This is exactly what the Huurcommissie expects from a landlord in its assessment framework: the statement must match the actual costs and the advance payments made, and it must be demonstrable.

A brief explanation, separate from the statement, of what the law changes from 1 July 2026. Four sentences explaining that this statement, covering 2025, falls under the old rules, that the new law only applies to statements affecting the second half of 2026, and that the tenant will see an adjusted format with the next statement. That way, you remove the second question before it's even asked.

What June reveals about your process for next year

The calm in your inbox in late July can be traced almost entirely back to what you sent out in May. A statement that raises no questions isn't a stroke of luck, and it isn't down to having a better class of tenant. It's a statement that answers questions the tenant would otherwise go on to ask. For 2026, that becomes more pressing: from 1 July you'll have to adjust your system to the new list anyway. June is therefore a reasonably good moment to note which line items in your current statement raise the most questions this year, and to build that straight into the new format. What's a peak in your inbox now is, in twelve months, the foundation of a statement that saves you a great deal of work.