Special court for disputes between neighbours in the Netherlands

A special court will be put into action in the Netherlands next year to help resolve disputes between warring neighbours, with most of the work being done online.

Communication between neighbours

The new court will be able to be found online at burenrechter.nl from next year.

Residents with a complaint about their neighbour will be able to lodge it on the website and the accused will then be asked to log-in themselves where they will communicate over the issue under the supervision of a judge.

The judges will also pay visits to the houses of the neighbours concerned in order to observe the problems first hand and to come to solution based on the realities of the situation.

Long cases creating animosity

Earlier this year it was revealed that the biggest complaint by residents of Amsterdam are noisy neighbours, with 12.585 complaints made to police in 2012.

There are around 4.000 cases each year involving neighbourly disputes in the Netherlands and each case can take a whole year to resolve, often creating more animosity between the neighbours.

Creating a more efficient procedure

The main concern was the length of time which neighbourly disputes usually require to resolve. It is hoped that use of the internet and visits by judges will improve the efficiency of the procedure and encourage a more amiable solution between neighbours.

Source: NOS