Guide for EPO newcomers to The Hague

From jldecoi's wiki

Whom this page is for[edit | edit source]

Being a (future) patent examiner at the EPO about to move to The Hague, I am writing these notes to help other (future) patent examiners at the EPO about to move to The Hague.

I am writing these notes in an attempt to overcome the shortcomings of the document Guide for newcomers to The Hague you probably got as well after receiving your job offer. As such, this page is not meant to replace but rather to integrate that document (in other words, this page assumes previous knowledge of that document). The confidential title of this page could also sound All I wish I had known before moving to The Hague.

Disclaimer[edit | edit source]

You can regard this page as a sort of log of my personal experience. I am collecting here a list of lessons learned which might help you to spare time and avoid errors (which I possibly made myself). Nevertheless you should take this information cum grano salis. Also take a look at when this page has been updated for the last time (and what has been updated then). It might well be that some content of its is now out-of-date. In such a case and whenever you want to improve this page, you are very welcome to edit and update it.

Before you start[edit | edit source]

Before sorting out the things described below, it might be a good idea collecting the following information.

For each member of your family

  • First and last name. In particular, starting letter(s) of first name(s)
  • Gender (just to be able to distinguish between De heer -- Mr. -- and Mevr. -- Ms.)
  • Birth date
  • Mail address
  • Some identity certificate (e.g., passport or identity card) as well as its id

Moreover, keep track of

  • (as soon as you have a Dutch accommodation) address and ZIP code
  • (as soon as you have a Dutch bank account) IBAN
  • a telephone number (lacking of a Dutch number, I provided the one of the EPO switchboard -- 0703402040)
  • the day on which you will be moving

Finally, most Dutch Internet sites I was interested in did not provide a non-Dutch version. Therefore recall that Google Translate is your friend.

What you have to do[edit | edit source]

When moving to The Hague, there are a couple of things which you just have to do, either because they are required by law or because you theoretically should not but practically have to or because it is hard to figure out how you could live in The Hague otherwise. This section aims at providing an exhaustive list of such things.

Notice that many items in such a list depend on the first two ones. You are hence strongly encouraged to sort out the first two items quite (= at least 1.5 months) in advance w.r.t. the other ones (including those in the next section).

Accommodation[edit | edit source]

Finding an accommodation through an estate agent is probably easiest. They typically offer the following alternatives

  1. you will not have to pay commission costs if you are only interested in accommodations among the ones provided by the estate agent
  2. you will have to pay 1/2 month rent + VAT if you want the estate agent to make appointments to visit accommodations provided (also) by other estate agents

In order to spare the commission costs, I would suggest to

  • select a couple of accommodations you are interested in through e.g., the comparison portals Funda, Just Landed and Pararius
  • group such accommodations by real estate
  • directly make appointments with such real estates

Finally, it seems that the best timing to visit accommodations is 1.5 months before check-in.

Bank account[edit | edit source]

Almost as important as an accommodation is a bank account. Theoretically, as of February 2016 every merchant/employer should be able to accept an arbitrary IBAN from an arbitrary SEPA country (more specifically, not accepting IBANs from other EEA member countries is actually a violation of European law -- Art. 9 of Regulation No 260/2012). Practically, The Netherlands are plenty of merchants which only accept Dutch IBANs, which makes having a Dutch bank account a necessary evil.

Opening a Dutch bank account would not be that bad if there were Dutch banks without commission costs (as you have them e.g., in Germany). Unfortunately, the only commission-free bank available in The Netherlands seems to be N26 which will provide you with an IBAN (starting with DE and hence often) unusable in The Netherlands.

In order to select a bank, you might want to exploit this comparison portal. However, ABN AMRO offers special (= better) conditions to EPO employees (currently, an account costs 0.75 €/month instead of 1.40 €/month). Moreover, an ABN AMRO office is available within the EPO building.

When opening a Dutch bank account, you would theoretically need a Burgerservicenummer (BSN) which you will receive on your first day of employment. Fortunately, you can often provide it within n days from account opening. Make sure that n is big enough (resp. that you do not open the bank account too early).

Insurances[edit | edit source]

Renters in the Netherlands are required to have both a liability insurance and a contents insurance. If you already have an ABN AMRO bank account, you might get both of them at special (= better) conditions. In particular, I have been told that a liability insurance would currently cost 3 €/month instead of 3.51 €/month. However, when checking the comparison portal mentioned below, I could not find any liability insurance by ABN AMRO for 3.51 €/month.

Liability insurance[edit | edit source]

You might want to exploit this comparison portal. If all Dutch liability insurances are like mine, they run one year and are automatically extended by 1 year afterwards. However, they can be terminated on a daily basis.

Contents insurance[edit | edit source]

You might want to exploit this or this comparison portal. Unfortunately, the second comparison portal is not available yet and the prices you will see on the first one are not necessarily the ones showing up on the Web sites of the insurance companies. For this reason, you might want to manually compare the first n results.

Finally, in order to be able to buy a contents insurance online, you will have to ask your landlord to fill out this questionnaire.

Water[edit | edit source]

Not much to say about water. Just follow the instructions presented here as soon as you check in (you cannot do it in advance since you have to report the value of the water counters).

Electricity, gas[edit | edit source]

You might want to exploit this comparison portal.

Contracts seem to be automatically extended for an indefinite period. If you want to terminate them after the initial subscription period, beware of the notice period (Opzegtermijn).

NOTE: You should make a contract with some provider (at the latest) right after your rent contract starts, even if you check in later. Otherwise, chances are high that you will find neither electricity nor gas at your accommodation (and you will have to pay for a new electrical and gas connection). I mean it seriously: they are not cool at all.

What you probably want to do[edit | edit source]

You could probably survive in The Hague without a mobile telephone number but I bet you would like to have one. This section is about mobile telephone numbers and similarly important/urgent things.

Internet, telephone, TV[edit | edit source]

You might want to exploit this comparison portal, where you can also select all possible subsets of Internet, telephone and TV.

Internet providers may take quite long to set up your Internet connections. I suggest to make a contract with your favorite provider 1.5 months before you need an Internet connections.

Just like with electricity and gas, contracts seem to be automatically extended for an indefinite period. If you want to terminate them after the initial subscription period, beware of the notice period (Opzegtermijn).

USB-modem[edit | edit source]

In case you do not manage to set up an Internet connection by the time you need it, you might want to order an USB-modem (dongel). I found this page especially useful.

It might be that no SIM card comes along with the USB-modem, in which case you will have to buy it separately.

Mobile telephone[edit | edit source]

You might want to exploit this or (better) this comparison portal.

Just like with electricity and gas, contracts seem to be automatically extended for an indefinite period. If you want to terminate them after the initial subscription period, beware of the notice period (Opzegtermijn).

Public transport[edit | edit source]

If you plan to exploit public transport regularly, you might want to buy a season ticket, which in turn requires to buy a so-called OV-chipkaart.

If you are lucky enough to live in a supported country, you can order an OV-chipkaart online by following the instruction listed here (click on Purchase an OV-chipkaart) and your OV-chipkaart will be delivered to your current address.

Otherwise, you will have to wait until you are in The Netherlands, which is not too bad, since you can only buy (yearly) season tickets at HTM Service Points.

The The Hague-area is divided in zones and the price of a season ticket depends on the zones you want to travel in, as described here. It would be great if there were a tool providing the zone of an arbitrary input address, but I could not find it. For this reason, I suggest the following strategy.

  • Make a list of routes you are likely to do (from your accommodation to the EPO premises, from your accommodation to your consulate...) as well as an estimate how often you will do them
  • Use this tool to find the begin and end stops of all routes collected at the previous point
  • Make a list of all stops collected at the previous point
  • Go to an HTM Service Point with the list created at the previous point

Finally, recall that you always have to scan your OV-chipkaart both when getting in and when getting out of a vehicle.

Parking permit[edit | edit source]

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a way to get a parking permit before obtaining a Burgerservicenummer which, as explained above, you will not get before your first day of employment. The huge drawback of this state of affairs is that you will have to pay n €/day before you start working (and n might well be 10).

The best solution I could find is the car park P+R Hoornwijck. Although I would not really call it "cheap", it is by far not as expensive as parking on the street side.