A register for Dutch estate agents: what it could mean when you bid

If you are buying a home in Amsterdam, you will almost certainly deal with a makelaar, the Dutch estate agent, who usually acts for the seller. Since the protected title was abolished in 2001, anyone in the Netherlands can call themselves one. On 1 October 2026 the housing minister, Elanor Boekholt-O'Sullivan, told parliament she wants to change that with a mandatory register for estate agents and rules of conduct set by law.

For buyers, the bidding matters most. When several buyers are interested in the same home, the seller's agent collects their offers, and you do not get to see what the others bid. In the third quarter of 2026, 77 percent of homes in the city sold above the last asking price, according to the Amsterdam estate agents' association MVA (see our overview of the Amsterdam market in Q3 2026). When you bid blind, you want the rules to be the same for everyone.

How the system works today

Dutch estate agents regulate themselves. The two main professional bodies, NVM and Vastgoed Nederland, each have their own code of conduct, disciplinary procedures and training requirements, but these apply only to members. According to RIGO research cited in the minister's letter, about 80 percent of agencies selling homes are members, covering 92 to 95 percent of public home sales.

Since 1 January 2023, member agents have had to keep a bidding log, the biedlogboek. In a survey among members of the Dutch homeowners' association VEH, people received the log after a sale in only 32 percent of cases. The industry drafted a single standard for it, NTA 8061, but NVM and its subsidiary Realworks did not sign it. The professional bodies also told the ministry they would not actively police their own codes.

A separate study by the Verwey-Jonker Institute surveyed buyers and sellers across the Netherlands. These are national figures, not Amsterdam data. 27.8 percent of respondents reported at least one negative experience with an agent, usually the seller's agent, most often about poor information. 86 percent of them never filed a complaint. Membership of a professional body made little difference: 87 percent of complaints concerned an agent who was a member, roughly in line with the share of member agencies.

What the minister proposes

Of four options, from voluntary certification to full regulation of the profession, the minister chose a mandatory register, which she calls a relatively light form of regulation. Anyone offering estate agency services would have to register once. There would be no education requirement, because the complaints are mainly about behaviour, not expertise, according to the letter.

Registered agents would be bound by statutory rules of conduct modelled on the Belgian system, built on three principles:

• transparency, including a bidding log that follows NTA 8061;
• correct information, so that facts affecting the value, such as the condition of the foundations or known defects, are shared in time and in full;
• equal treatment, so every interested buyer can view the home on the same terms, with or without their own buying agent.

All agents would have to join the Dutch disputes committee for consumer complaints, De Geschillencommissie. In serious cases a ruling by the disciplinary board for property professionals could lead to an agent being struck off the register. Unlike today, that agent could not simply carry on as an independent. As one way to enforce this, the minister mentions a ban on property listings without a registration number, similar to the rule that already applies to short-term holiday rentals.

A compulsory bidding method, or moving the bidding to the notary, goes too far for now in her view.

Not law yet

This is a plan, not legislation. Who runs the register, who supervises it and the exact rules still have to be worked out and checked against EU law. The minister aims to update parliament in the first quarter of 2027, and there is no start date. The letter says the costs will fall on the profession and may be passed on to consumers indirectly. NVM supports a register but says that without a competence requirement it does not protect buyers well enough.

What you can do as a buyer now

The bidding log already exists. Bidding software records every offer automatically and the entries cannot be changed later. According to the Dutch government, it shows the start date and the sales method, the number of bids, the amount and conditions of each bid, any negotiations along the way and the final price. Once the sale is final, the seller, every bidder and their buying agents can view it, with personal details anonymised.

• Ask which sales method applies and what the deadline for bids is before you make an offer.
• Submit your bid through the seller's agent's official bidding form, so it is recorded in the log.
• Ask for any foundation reports and a list of known defects, especially for an older building.
• No log after the sale became final? Ask the seller's agent. If that fails, you can go to the estate agency disputes committee, provided the agent belongs to a professional body.

A buying agent can take you through the bidding process and check the conditions in your offer.

A note for sellers

A clear process also protects the seller, who receives each offer at the same moment as the agent. Agree on the sales method in advance and stick to it: changing the rules halfway is one of the problems the minister says keep turning up in complaints to VEH. Sharing foundation surveys and known defects up front also avoids disputes after the sale. When we handle a sale, we agree with you beforehand how the bidding will run.

Sources (in Dutch): letter to parliament on regulating estate agents, 1 October 2026 (Kamerstuk 32 847, no. 1505); answers to parliamentary questions; Verwey-Jonker Institute, experiences with estate agents; Dutch government, bidding log; NVM response, 1 October 2026; Makelaarsvereniging Amsterdam, Q3 2026 figures.