Woningpas: the digital passport of your home in Flanders

What is the Woningpas?

Four Flemish bodies work together: the Flemish Energy and Climate Agency (VEKA), the Department of Environment (Departement Omgeving), Wonen in Vlaanderen (the Flemish housing agency) and OVAM (the Public Waste Agency of Flanders). Since the end of 2018 the Woningpas has offered functions for homes. The aim is that you can consult the paperwork for building or renovating, buying or selling, and renting or letting in one place, instead of searching at each office separately.

What do you find in it?

According to the Woningpas, you can consult, among other things:

• the year of construction, the year of renovation and characteristic surface areas and volumes;
• the EPC (energy performance certificate, EPC-attest) and the EPB declaration, with a comparison with similar homes in your municipality, province and Region, and an overview of the main steps to reach label A (only for EPCs from 2019);
• the details of your installations (heating, hot water, cooling, ventilation, solar panels) and your gas and electricity meters;
• the soil certificate (bodemattest) and information on possible soil contamination;
• the asbestos certificate (asbestattest), the conformity certificate and the technical housing quality report;
• information on sewerage or individual water treatment and on flood risk;
• the history of planning permits and digital building permits;
• an overview of grants for which you are eligible and a timeline of completed renovation works with a grant.

It also contains a step-by-step plan for buying or selling a home to determine which certificates you need, and the procedure for applying for them.

Logging in and sharing

You log in with your eID, a personal token or the itsme app. For each dwelling you see what the Flemish Government knows digitally. As an owner you can:

• give permission without obligation to other people, for example your architect or future buyers, to view your Woningpas;
• share your Woningpas with Mijn Burgerprofiel or share it publicly;
• add renovation works you have carried out to the timeline;
• keep non-digital certificates, plans and other documents in a digital safe.

You choose yourself with whom and for what period you share. The Woningpas names family, future buyers, tenants, your architect or contractor, a renovation adviser, an estate agent or a notary as possible people to share with.

What happens on a sale?

The information you add to the Woningpas yourself is stored in a central database and passes to the next owner on a transfer of ownership. If you do not want to pass on certain documents, you can still download or delete them before the transfer. It is therefore a useful place to collect invoices, plans and certificates, which you can then also use for the sale documents.

Use the Woningpas as a starting point, not as proof:

• The EPC you need for the sale is requested from an EPB assessor (energiedeskundige); see the EPC certificate.
• For the soil, it is the soil certificate that counts; see the soil certificate.
• For flood risk, read the guide on flood-prone areas.
• For a post-intervention file (postinterventiedossier), the file itself is still needed: the post-intervention file.

Why is it useful for a seller?

Before you put the home on the market, it pays to look at your Woningpas. You see which certificates the government already knows about (for example an existing EPC or asbestos certificate), which permits and renovation works are registered and what soil information is known. This way you find out early if a piece of data is wrong, and you know which documents you still have to have drawn up yourself. According to the disclaimer, the Woningpas works with a pull model: no personal information is stored in a usable way. What you add yourself, however, is kept in a central database.

The limitations

The Woningpas shows digitally available data. The administrators write that they cannot guarantee that the information is complete, correct, accurate or up to date. No rights can be derived from the data in plans and maps: the map information is purely informative and has no legally binding force. For the legal planning context of a plot, contact your municipality’s planning department; see planning information (stedenbouwkundige inlichtingen). If you notice an error, use the “contact us” button in the Woningpas.

Which professional to consult

A notary checks which certificates are needed for your sale and requests the planning information and the soil certificate. An estate agent can, with your permission, view your Woningpas to prepare the sale. An approved EPB assessor draws up the EPC.