MRE: Returning Every Summer to the Same House in Morocco Can Betray You
In the Netherlands, repeated holidays at the same address in Morocco can attract the municipality’s attention. Social assistance recipients may be questioned about where they stay and their dates of entry and exit.
Officials responsible for granting and monitoring “bijstand,” Dutch social assistance, are being urged to stop treating stays abroad as merely administrative information. The holiday address and travel habits may become clues in the search for undeclared assets.
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The guide Handreiking inkomen en vermogen in het buitenland V2026 recommends that they ask where the person is staying, with whom they are residing and what they plan to do when they announce an extended trip abroad.
For holidays, municipalities may request the address of the place of stay and examine the entry and exit dates shown in passports in order to gain an understanding of travel habits. The document considers that a person spending several years on holiday at the same address could own the house in question.
The Moroccan destination becomes part of the case
The chapter devoted to Morocco follows the same line. When a municipality requests an investigation into a possible property, it must in particular provide the destinations where the beneficiary regularly goes on holiday. According to the guide, this information may constitute an indication of the existence of a house or plot of land.
This address can help investigators locate the property, whereas land registry information is sometimes difficult to use in Morocco. Registration is not systematic there, particularly in rural areas, and houses do not always have an address or a stable number.
Moroccan local authorities may then be approached to determine whether a person owns property in the indicated area. The investigations are conducted by a committee involving, among others, the Dutch representation, the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior and the Land Registry.
Returning every summer to the same house does not, however, by itself prove that the beneficiary owns it. The guide specifies that a mere suspicion is not enough to request an investigation from the International Bureau of Fraud Information. The municipality must have sufficiently concrete indications and comply with the principles of proportionality.
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A recurring address, combined with other elements of the case, may nevertheless lead the municipality to request documents concerning ownership of the dwelling and the conditions under which the beneficiary stays there.