Who is a garden home (mantelzorgwoning) intended for?

A garden home (mantelzorgwoning) is intended for two people at once: the person who needs care and the person who gives the care. That sounds obvious, but legally it is the point on which everything turns. The home is allowed to stand there because there is a care relationship, not because someone is old or because there is space to spare in the garden.

Who actually lives in it is up to you. In most cases the person receiving care moves into the garden home and the family stays in the house. The reverse is also allowed, and happens more often than people think: the carer takes the garden home and the person receiving care stays in the house where they have lived all their life.

What informal care means under Dutch law

The Wet maatschappelijke ondersteuning 2015 (Wmo, the Social Support Act) defines informal care (mantelzorg) in article 1.1.1 as help for someone with whom you have a social relationship, which arises directly from that relationship and which is not given as part of a caring profession. Three things follow from this, and together they determine whether your situation qualifies.

• There must be an existing relationship. Parent and child, partners, brothers and sisters, but also a neighbour or a good friend. It does not have to be family.
• The care arises from that relationship. You help because she is your mother, not because you have been hired to do it.
• It is not professional care. A district nurse who visits you is not a carer, even if she comes every day.

Volunteer care does not count either, because it comes from an organisation and not from a personal bond. The difference matters as soon as your municipality (gemeente) looks at your situation.

What kind of care needs are involved

The law does not name any medical conditions and sets no minimum number of hours. In practice there are four situations that we see again and again.

• Old age with increasing care needs. Someone still copes, but no longer alone, and the distance to the children is the problem.
• A chronic illness or a physical disability that makes climbing stairs, cooking or washing no longer straightforward.
• Early dementia or memory problems, where supervision close by makes the difference between staying at home and moving.
• An adult child with an intellectual or mental health condition who wants to live independently but not far away.

There is no age limit. A garden home for a 27-year-old son with autism can be justified just as well as a home for an 84-year-old father.

When a garden home is not the solution

We would rather say this beforehand than afterwards. When care needs call for professional supervision 24 hours a day, a separate home in the garden is not the right place. Advanced dementia with wandering is one example: a front door of their own is then not independence but a risk.

It also does not work if the person receiving care does not want to move. A garden home solves distance, not resistance. And if your back garden is too small for what may be placed there without a permit, talking about models is pointless until you have done the permit check for your address.

What the municipality wants to see

For a permit-free garden home in the back garden area (achtererfgebied), the law does not require an assessment from the care administration office (zorgkantoor). What the municipality wants to know is whether informal care is genuinely involved. Many municipalities ask for a statement from a GP, a district nurse or a social medical adviser for this, and some ask for nothing as long as the situation is plausible.

The second point is that it is temporary. The home may be used as self-contained living space for as long as the care relationship exists. If that ends, the basis for self-contained use lapses and the home must be removed or given a different function, for example as a guest house. What happens to the home after that is explained in what happens after the resident dies.

The exact requirements differ per municipality, because the environmental plan (omgevingsplan) is set locally. That is also why we do the check per address instead of giving a general answer.

Mantelzorgwoning, zorgwoning or aanleunwoning

These three Dutch words are used interchangeably but do not mean the same thing. The difference lies in who arranges the home and where it stands.

• A mantelzorgwoning (garden home) stands on the grounds of a private home and is linked to a care relationship between the residents. You arrange it yourself; no institution is involved.
• Zorgwoning (care home) is an umbrella term for any home that has been adapted to care needs: single-storey, step-free, with a bathroom where a wheelchair can turn. So a garden home is a zorgwoning, but not every zorgwoning is a garden home.
• An aanleunwoning (sheltered home) belongs to a care centre or a complex, with care provided by that organisation. For that you go on a waiting list; for your own garden you do not.

That last difference is the deciding one for most families. A place in a complex becomes available when it becomes available. A home in the garden arrives when you decide it is needed.

What support is available for carers

Informal care is not only a housing question. Four forms of support are arranged nationally or made mandatory nationally, and all four are underused.

• Support under the Wmo. Your municipality is obliged to support carers. What that means in concrete terms differs per municipality: advice, a listening ear, help with the paperwork or practical provisions. The point of contact is usually the Wmo desk (Wmo-loket) or the local social care team (sociaal wijkteam).
• Respite care. Someone temporarily takes over the care from you, so that you can get away for a weekend or a week. This is arranged through the municipality, and for heavier care through health insurance or the Wet langdurige zorg (Wlz, the Long-term Care Act).
• The annual token of appreciation. Article 2.1.6 of the Wmo 2015 requires municipalities to set rules for an annual token of appreciation for carers. In practice this is a sum of money, a voucher or a small gift, and you usually have to apply for it yourself.
• Care leave from your employer. The Wet arbeid en zorg (Work and Care Act) gives the right to short-term care leave of twice your weekly working hours per year, with seventy per cent of your salary paid, and in addition to long-term care leave of six times your working hours, unpaid.

A carer support worker (mantelzorgondersteuner or mantelzorgconsulent) is the person who knows all of this. They work at the municipality or at a local support centre, think along with you about what is needed and know which schemes exist in your municipality. A conversation there costs you an hour and pays off more often than people expect.

Informal care for your parents

The largest group searching for this topic cares for a father or a mother. The Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (the Netherlands Institute for Social Research) arrives at around five million carers in the Netherlands, roughly one in three adults, of whom a few hundred thousand describe themselves as heavily burdened.

That burden rarely lies in the care itself. It lies in driving back and forth, in the nights when the phone might ring and in not being able to get away for a weekend. That is exactly what distance does, and it is the reason people end up with us. Fifteen metres of garden between two front doors takes out the travel time without you living in the same house.

What people underestimate is the other side: privacy. A front door of their own, their own doorbell and their own letterbox are not details. They determine whether your mother feels like a guest or at home, and whether you can close your own door at the end of the day.

Who else is affected

Two things always come up in the conversation at the kitchen table. The first is what the home does to your own house: the WOZ value (the municipal property valuation) may go up, and that feeds through into the tax assessment. The second is money: the purchase, and whether a subsidy or financing through your mortgage is possible.

The third point usually comes later, and it is wise to discuss it earlier. What happens when the care stops. We buy back our own homes, so that at that moment there is a way out that does not require improvisation.

The practical next step

If your situation fits within what is described above, the first question is not which model you like but what is allowed on your property. Do the permit check, and then look at the models with their floor plans. If you are unsure whether your situation counts as informal care, ask the Wmo desk of your municipality first. That is a fifteen-minute conversation that can save you months.

Sources

• [Act] Wet maatschappelijke ondersteuning 2015 (Wmo, Social Support Act) — art. 1.1.1 and art. 2.1.6 — definition of informal care and the annual token of appreciation — accessed 2026-08-20
• [Act] Wet arbeid en zorg (Work and Care Act) — short-term and long-term care leave — accessed 2026-08-20
• [Decree] Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving (Bbl, Buildings Decree) — garden home as an ancillary building — accessed 2026-08-20
• [Research] Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (Netherlands Institute for Social Research) — scale and burden of informal care in the Netherlands — accessed 2026-08-20
• [Guidance] Informatiepunt Leefomgeving (government information point on planning) — garden homes and permit-free building — accessed 2026-08-20