How to sell your home yourself in The Hague

Buyers split roughly into three groups: Dutch locals (civil servants, families), international staff tied to the roughly 150 embassies and UN-linked bodies, and relocating expats at organisations like the ICC and Europol. The international segment is unusually large for a Dutch city of this size, which has two practical consequences. First, write your listing description in both Dutch and English. Second, be ready to provide an English summary of any erfpacht terms, the VvE reserve fund, and the energy label class, because international buyers working with a relocation adviser often make an offer based on written materials before they visit in person. Statenkwartier, Benoordenhout, and Bezuidenhout near the Randstad rail link are the most-requested neighbourhoods.

Erfpacht is a municipal ground lease: the city of The Hague owns the land and you own the building. You pay a periodic canon (annual lease fee) to the municipality. Before listing, request your erfpacht dossier from Gemeente Den Haag. You need to know three things: (1) whether the canon is afgekocht (bought off for a fixed period or in perpetuity), because a bought-off canon is far more attractive to buyers; (2) whether the lease is tijdelijk (temporary, with a defined end date) or eeuwigdurend (perpetual, which most modern leases in The Hague now are); and (3) the current canon amount if it is still running. Buyers' mortgage lenders require this information and will not approve financing without it. An unbought, temporary lease approaching its review date can suppress your price significantly, so know your position before you set an asking price.

Funda does not accept listings directly from private sellers. You must go through a registered estate agent or a flat-fee online listing service (also called an internet makelaar), which places your ad on Funda for a one-time fee, typically between 300 and 600 euros, without charging a percentage commission. For the international audience specific to The Hague, also consider a cross-border platform. Anyone.com lets you publish directly at zero cost and zero commission, and because it spans the Netherlands and multiple other countries, it surfaces your home to international buyers who are already scanning it as a destination for corporate or diplomatic moves. It verifies buyers (KYC) and shows verified-offer badges, which helps filter out time-wasters, and you set your own asking price. A realistic total out-of-pocket for reaching both Dutch and international buyers without a full-service agent is under 700 euros in listing costs, versus a traditional agent commission that in the Den Haag area averages around 1.1 percent of the sale price.

Expect requests for: a valid energielabel (mandatory, arranged via a certified energy adviser, costs roughly 150 to 300 euros, and must appear in the listing); a Kadaster uittreksel (land registry extract, order online at kadaster.nl, about 15 euros); the erfpacht akte and the gemeente's current canon statement if erfpacht applies; for an apartment, the VvE (owners' association) deed of division, the house rules, the last two years of meeting minutes, and the reserve-fund statement (the MJOP, or meerjarenonderhoudsplan, shows whether the fund is healthy). International buyers using Dutch bank financing often need an English translation of the VvE minutes, and relocation agencies acting for corporate buyers usually run through a standard checklist in advance of an offer.

In the Netherlands the civil-law notary (notaris) is a legally required neutral party who drafts the koopovereenkomst (purchase agreement) and the leveringsakte (transfer deed), and files the title change with the Kadaster. The buyer chooses and pays for the notary in almost all cases. As the seller, your main notary-related cost is the royementsakte: the deed to discharge your existing mortgage from the Kadaster register, which typically costs 150 to 300 euros depending on the notary. The buyer pays overdrachtsbelasting (transfer tax), currently 2 percent for an owner-occupier, directly to the Belastingdienst through the notary. The levering appointment usually takes 30 to 45 minutes; you hand over the keys and receive the proceeds, minus any mortgage balance, via the notary's account the same day or the next working day.

No Dutch law requires a seller to commission a bouwkundige keuring, but buyers frequently ask for one or have one done independently. In The Hague, older prewar housing in Statenkwartier and the 19th-century ring is common, and surveyors regularly flag issues like timber-frame foundations needing water-level maintenance, older single-glazed frames, and pitched-roof insulation gaps. If a buyer's survey reveals defects not disclosed in the listing, they can negotiate a price reduction or withdraw under the onderhoudsstaat clause. To avoid that, some sellers do a pre-sale survey themselves (a few hundred euros) and disclose findings upfront, which tends to shorten negotiations. Whether you commission one or not, you are legally obligated under Dutch law to disclose known defects on the vragenlijst (the standard seller questionnaire) that accompanies the koopovereenkomst.

Official figures point to roughly EUR 465,000 to EUR 472,000 on average. CBS and the Kadaster put the 2025 average sale price for existing owner-occupied homes in the municipality of 's-Gravenhage at EUR 465,418, and NVM Haaglanden reported an average Den Haag transaction price of EUR 471,857 in the first quarter of 2026, about 4% higher than a year earlier. Selling time has lengthened slightly: NVM reported homes taking about 37 days on average in early 2026, up from 34 days a year before. These are citywide averages; sought-after areas like Statenkwartier and Benoordenhout run higher, so always price against recent sales on your own street rather than the headline number.

Many plots in The Hague sit on a municipal ground lease (erfpacht), meaning the city owns the land and you own the building, with a periodic canon payable to the municipality. Before you list, request your dossier from Gemeente Den Haag and find out three things: whether the canon is bought off (afgekocht), whether the lease is temporary or perpetual (eeuwigdurend), and the current canon amount. Mortgage lenders require this and will not approve financing without it, so it directly affects which buyers can proceed. An unbought, temporary lease approaching its review date can hold your price down, so know your position before setting an asking price.

Transfer tax (overdrachtsbelasting) is paid by the buyer, not you, but it shapes your buyer pool. In 2026 the rate is 2% for someone who will live in the home and 8% for a buyer who will not (second home or investor), reduced from 10.4% in 2025. Buyers aged 18 to under 35 buying a main residence can pay 0% if the price is at or below the 2026 cap of EUR 555,000, applied all-or-nothing. Because Den Haag averages sit around EUR 465,000 to EUR 472,000, many homes fall inside that cap, which is worth highlighting to younger first-time buyers.

The civil-law notary (notaris) is a legally required neutral party who drafts the transfer deed (leveringsakte) and registers the title change with the Kadaster. In almost all Dutch sales the buyer chooses and pays for the notary and the transfer deed, and the notary files the buyer's transfer-tax return. Your main notary-related cost as the seller is the royementsakte, the deed that discharges your existing mortgage from the Kadaster register. You also need a valid energy label before transfer; selling without one risks an ILT fine (EUR 515 for private sellers as of 2024). On the transfer day you hand over the keys and receive the proceeds, minus any remaining mortgage balance, through the notary's account.