The Aedes benchmark is shifting to the condition score, and what that means for your MJOP

It's that time of year when you open the sector report and place your own score next to that of the woningcorporatie (Dutch social housing provider) further down the list. Maintenance and improvement, three sub-scores, a letter beside them. You roughly know where you stand, you know which conversation you'll have about it with your management team, and you know exactly which question your RvC (raad van commissarissen, supervisory board) will ask the moment the score drops a tenth of a point on last year. It has become a ritual, and that is exactly why it is easy to miss that the yardstick itself is shifting.

Because the way that performance field is built up is changing. And the part that's changing, technical quality, is exactly the part your maintenance budget rests on. If you're building your MJOP (meerjarenonderhoudsplan, or multi-year maintenance plan) for the coming years right now, you're building it against a standard that will soon measure differently than it does today.

How the performance field is currently structured

In the current setup, the Maintenance and improvement performance field consists of three sub-scores. Maintenance costs weigh 40 per cent, technical housing quality 30 per cent, and perceived housing quality the remaining 30 per cent. Those maintenance costs aren't assessed on a single year, but over a five year period against a reference value per housing type and year of construction. For the Aedes benchmark 2025, that window runs from financial year 2020 up to and including 2024.

That five year window matters more than it looks. It means that an intervention you carry out this year won't fully show up in your index for several years, and that a year in which you deliberately spent less will linger in your average for a long time. In other words, the score is slow moving, and that's exactly why the second component, technical quality, matters.

From energy label to condition score

Until now, that technical housing quality has been measured via the EP2, an indicator for energy performance under the NTA8800 standard. In practice, this mainly measures how energy efficient your home is, not what condition it's physically in. A well insulated property with a dated kitchen, failing window frames and overdue paintwork can still score neatly on that indicator.

That's precisely what's shifting. Aedes is working with woningcorporaties in pilots on a new model for the benchmark from the 2026 edition onwards, in which technical quality no longer comes from the EP2 but from the aggregated condition score in your dPi (the annual data return corporations file with the sector regulator). That condition score says something about the physical state of your stock, not about energy performance alone. Functional quality is added alongside it, measured through the WWS (woningwaarderingsstelsel, the Dutch points-based system for rent assessment) points attached to maintenance-sensitive components, and your tenants' perceived housing quality continues to count.

Important to keep sight of: Aedes hasn't yet decided whether or when this model will definitively replace the current setup. The pilots are running, the direction is clear, the exact start date isn't. So there's no need to panic and overhaul your entire system, but you do know where things are heading.

What that does to your maintenance budget

The heart of the shift is this: the benchmark will soon reward what your tenants and your inspectors already see, rather than what your energy label shows. A portfolio that looks fine on paper energetically but is physically wearing out will see its score fall under the new model, where it would have held up under the EP2.

For your MJOP, that means a different weighting than you're used to. If, over recent years, you've mainly prioritised investments in sustainability, because that carried your technical score and because policy demanded it, you were effectively steering on the EP2. Under the condition score, the less visible interventions, replacing installations, façade maintenance, resolving condition deficiencies at level 3 or higher, count in full again. Those aren't the line items a subsidy scheme pushes you towards, but they are the ones that will soon determine your score.

The practical consequence is that the quality of your condition survey itself becomes part of your score. An MJOP that leans on outdated or incomplete inspection data will soon produce not just a poorly substantiated plan, but also an unreliable benchmark position. The woningcorporaties that get ahead of this aren't the ones spending the most, but the ones getting their condition data in order before that data starts carrying your score.

For the coming edition, you can still place your old score next to the new one, for as long as the pilots run. Use that window. Not to rewrite your budget, but to see where your portfolio comes out differently under the condition score than under the EP2. That difference, per complex, is exactly the list your MJOP conversation will be about next year.