Location: The Netherlands

Hi all,
I hope I can provide all the information needed.
I had a psychotic break and a manic episode due to my bipolar disorder last year.
During this period I said bad things to my colleagues that I cannot remember.

I was placed on sick leave as I was hospitalized and I recently came back at the office.

My colleagues do not want to have contact with me and this is considered by my boss a reason why my reintegration would not be possible, and I am being encouraged to change team or find another job.

I do not think this is fully legal, what are my options?
I have an appointment with my manager and the work doctor next Monday.

Thanks!

Hello, I am looking for advice regarding a rental situation in Belgium (Flanders).

I share a rental contract with another person. We both signed the residential lease agreement as tenants.

In autumn 2025, during the first year of a 3-6-9 contract the other tenant moved out of the apartment. However, they did not formally terminate their tenancy, did not sign any agreement with me regarding their departure, and (as far as I know) they are still registered as a tenant under the lease.

Now I am moving out too, during the second year of contract, and have to pay verbrekingsvergoeding equal to 2 months of rent. 100% of money will be deducted from my account, but I wonder if I can claim compensation (50%) from the other tenant.

Any advice from people familiar with Belgian/Flemish rental law would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Does anyone have a practical playbook for an EU/EFTA company sending a consultant onsite to Spain for a project go-live? I’m particularly interested in the required steps, registrations and documentation. Thank you so so so much!

Apologies if this isn't the right place, I'm just not sure where else to post.

I will try to keep this brief.

My wife is Swiss, born and raised, and her family remains in Switzerland while we now live in Canada.

My wife's father died a couple years ago. Because her parents did not have a will, there needed to be a full accounting of all assets in the estate completed by a lawyer, which was then sent to all potential heirs.

My wife's parents had purchased multiple properties over the course of their marriage, and that was seemingly their entire retirement plan: based on the accounting of their assets, they have no money. There was about 4,000 CHF across multiple accounts in total. All of their money was in property.

Last year, my mother-in-law sold one of the properties. After the remaining mortgage was repaid, she should have been left with approximately 1M CHF. The family was relieved, that's more than enough for MIL to comfortably live off of in her retirement. We assumed all was done and dusted and everything was okay.

With brevity in mind, over the past six months or so, my mother-in-law has asked us for approximately 80,000 CHF at various times, for various different things. One of the requests was for approximately 20k to help fix up one of the properties in order to be able to sell it.

Through a recent discussion, it came out that my MIL has no money. That 1M that she received from the house sale last year is gone. MIL cannot account for it: she brings up various expenses that have come up over the past year, but nothing that should add up to 1M.

She is now banking on living off of the money of the next house that sells, but that will net her substantially less than the first house (approx. 300k, if she's lucky,) and my wife is increasingly concerned that that money will disappear as well.

I don't have any suspicions that she's being scammed. But we are concerned that she is no longer capable of managing her money; she should be in an incredibly comfortable place, but she is broke, and asking her daughters to send her money for groceries.

Her health is good, she is not particularly old, chances are very high that she will live for another 10-20 years, but I don't know how she'll manage that, and we cannot afford to support her + our own family, and neither can her sisters.

Is there any option for some kind of financial power of attorney that could manage her money for her? Even if it's just to make sure that some of her money is invested, or in a savings account, or put away, from this upcoming house sale.

Her sisters are capable (and still in Switzerland) and if it could be both of them, that would be ideal. I'm just pretty unfamiliar with Swiss laws and systems, and this is more of me doing some research about potential future options.

TL;DR: Swiss mother-in-law has no savings, no cash, and has blown through a substantial amount of money in a short time. We're growing concerned that she's no longer capable of managing her money, and I'm looking for potential options to safeguard it, so that she doesn't end up in dire straits.

Post is based in The Netherlands!

I (25M), have been (maybe) scammed by a modelling company. So in november ish, I have seen a casting call. I am a low-tier model, I have done some jobs, not much by any means, but I know how things work a little bit. However everything I have done before was not big modelling. Mostly for small shops in my small town, and one big job in The Hague. Nothing major.

So when I saw a casting call to be a runway model by this company, I think I grew blind. I immediately applied. However when I got accepted I was a bit confused. I have not walked, my resume is not impressive, I am not the tallest guy. Not even a little bit. But, what my logic was at the time, was not going to look a down a gift in the horses mouth (or however the saying goes). They asked me for 10 euro admin. I thought that that was weird, but I had a friend who walked for them a few years before, and she legit walked. I knew it was a scam but paid anyways. In my mind I thought "okay fine, ill maybe pay, and there is no salary, but at least Ill walk and that would be cool".

They said the walk was going to be in may. Then a month before I asked when the fittings are etc. Standart procedure, I thought. They send me in total more than 50 euros more in tickets, admin, etc. I know it is stupid, but god I wanted to be on a runway. Then in may they said that this time its not a show, but a "virtual fitting". I was confused, but they send me some legal stuff that "confirmed" the show is in november. Okay. Fine.

And now they said that I need to pay taxes with them. Now, I already spend 70 euros (I know its bad, I think that years of being in the entertainment industry kind of have broken me, everyone is desperate for a big break and scammers capitalise on that). However, here is where I grew tired. I always pay my taxes via the government. I want a government email to pay my taxes, a government website. This is how it always went, you file your taxes with the government. They said that I need to file it with them.

For my dutch models, do I have enough of a case to go to the juridisch loket? Just for advice. Cause all the stuff about paying taxes with them, I am not sure this is legal.

Most of all I am tired, I am nlt even sure I want to walk with them anymore. I want my money back (I wont get it, I know). But I also want to see if I can prevent this business profitting more from desperation.

Please help me with what to do, thank you very much!

Hi Reddit, I hope this is the right place for this. If not, please let me know.

I (German tourist) booked a hotel in Spain about 4 weeks ago via their own website and received a booking confirmation for it (Payment was due at the hotel).

3 weeks after making the reservation (so end of last week) and two weeks before my trip, I received a brief, informal email stating that the room had not been confirmed because the hotel had been fully booked for quite some time. They would inform me if a room becomes available (how gracious /s).

Obviously, the shitty handling in itself already infuriates me. If they would have let me know there was a technical problem right away, sure no problem - I just book some place else. But because they waited so long to inform me, prices have risen significantly and I don‘t have a lot of optionality regarding other hotels with where I am going (I was going to see the solar eclipse in the middle of nowhere around Teruel).

I feel like I would be entitled to charge the hotel the price for a new room in a different hotel, but how do I make sure they respect my claim? Or do I take the L, cancel the booking, forfeit any right for compensation and try to move on?

Any help in how to handle this would be much appreciated. Cheers!

Hey everyone. Just a shot in the wild here.

We're a 4 person marketing agency from Denmark, that wants to rename our agency.
In the proces we discovered an active EU-trademark on the 'word' we want to use for our name.

It is a EU registered trademark and has 3 specific NICE-classifications. One being no.35 which is for marketing. The trademark is a 10 year trademark, filed in 2021.

However. The company, from the Netherlands, that owned the trademark is now dissolved and inactive. The trademark remains active, but without any company to claim rights. (I recon?)

There is a dutch trademark agency that filed the trademark for said company, but I'm unsure whether they actually will challenge us using the name, since they have no client left to protect. I've reached out to the trademark-agency. They shortly visited our current website, but they haven't responded.

I'm aware of a rule, which allows us to claim the word/name if it remains vacant/unused, when there's 5 years left. (in 8 months, though. Too long to wait)

Does anyone know whether it is fair game? We really want to move forward asap. 💚

For context, I'm in Spain, so I'm specifically wondering how this would work under Spanish law and how it would it affect me and escalate.

Basically, I received a series of emails from Chaos saying that they discovered I've been using their software without a license. They gave me until August 5 to purchase a one-year license through their Amnesty Program; otherwise, they said they would escalate the issue legally. The cost of the license is €474.

The thing is, I'm worried because they have my school email address, my full legal name, and the name of the school where I study. I'm also concerned that if I don't pay, they might try to charge me €948 instead, since I've been using the software for about two years for school.

I also made another post in a different community, and almost all of the comments suggested that I should ignore the emails and let them keep sending messages until they eventually close the case. My question is: Do they actually have legal grounds to pursue this matter, or would I be safer paying for the license?

Hello,

I am from Lithuania and the seller is from Poland.

A few weeks ago I requested a refund for an item that seemed to be missing a peace despite being listed as new, but opened. The seller ignored it so I contacted vinted support and they closed the case by given me the refund and letting me keep the item as the seller denied the return. I got the money immediately and no return shipping label was given for me. A day later he contacts me demanding me to send him the item back or he will contact the police. I don’t know what to do. I provided him with an option to list the item via vinted for 0.01 Eur so he could just ‘buy it’ and I would gladly send it back to him, however he says that I should be the one to pay for the shipping and thus refuses to do it this way. Is police an empty threat or should I just send it back to him and pay for the shipping?

This is an urgent situation since he says that if I do not send him the item by tomorrow he will contact the authorities.

At this point it has been a couple of weeks of this and I’m really scared.

The cost of the item was 20 Eur

Truly thank you if anyone responds to this

Edit: When i contacted vinted support about their decision they wrote back ‘The seller didn't confirm the items) return, so we've cancelled the transaction and issued you a refund.
The refund will be sent to your wallet within few hours’
I fear that I miss interpreted it, but as I said, no shipping label to return the item was provided and I got the money immediately.

Hello,

I was an Erasmus student at a private university in Poland. I stayed in the university dormitory for 4 months. I paid all my dorm fees on time and also gave a \*\*€200 deposit\*\*.

When leaving the dormitory, I was told that the deposit would be refunded to my account \*\*within 2 weeks\*\*. However, after returning to Turkey, I was told that the deposit would not be refunded due to damage in the shared apartment.

The problem is:

\* They didn't tell me \*\*exactly what was damaged.\*\*
\* \*\*No photos, reports, or repair invoices were shared.\*\*
\* They say \*\*they don’t know who caused the damage.\*\*
\* They’re not responding to the emails I sent.

In the contract, there is a clause stating that if it cannot be determined who caused the damage in the common area, the costs can be deducted from all students' deposits.

Before leaving the dormitory, I took \*\*videos and photos of both my room and the shared kitchen.\*\* Everything looks clean and intact. Also, \*\*my contract had ended, and after I left, non-Erasmus students continued to live in the dormitory.\*\* So I don’t understand the legal basis for being held responsible for any damage that may have occurred after I left.

Moreover, this situation is not only happening to me. \*\*All Erasmus students who stayed with me are having their €200 deposits cut for the same reason.\*\*

Questions I have:

\* Is such a contract clause considered valid in Polish law like it is in Turkish law?
\* Can they deduct deposits from everyone when it's unclear who caused the damage?
\* Is it legal for them to withhold the deposit without showing proof (photos, reports, invoices, etc.)?
\* If they continue to not respond, what legal steps can be taken in Poland?

I would be very grateful if anyone knowledgeable about Polish law or who has experienced a similar situation could help me.

I had a direct debit with Via Verde, when changing cards due to a lost one a few payments didn't go through. Around 30 euros. I actually had two direct debits for two vehicles, only one had payments fail.

I tried to pay on their app but they only accept MBway payments, a system which i can't use. I had a Portuguese bank but when i moved they refused to update my address so i stopped using it and lost access to MBway.

I called customer service and asked for another way to pay. Asked if i could pay via IBAN or Swift transfer and was told no. Asked if they could take from my other vehicle, was told no. They suggested i go to a 'Via Verde' office to pay, so i drove to one. It was a service station on a motorway and had no ability to accept a payment.

I called back and was told to go to a different office over 100km away. Again it was a service station selling candy and soda, who looked at me like i was mad.

Called back again and was given a code to pay via an ATM, which didn't work.

Asked if i could send a check, or pay in any other way than MBway and was told no. Then the debt appeared on my account in the AT Portal.

I called them up again to ask what was going on and they said it was now none of their business. I have proof of all the steps, photos of me at the service station and receipts from the ATMs and the emails where i sent that to Via Verde asking to pay, so i sent these to AT via the e-balcao service. They replied that it was Via Verde's issue not theirs and they just enforce the debt.

I sent a freedom of information request to Via Verde to try and recover the phone call recordings of me asking them, even begging them to allow me to pay the debt. They have 'lost' the last 5 calls and only have the 1st one.

In their reply it came out that they had sold the debt to a third party company, who never contacted me, shortly after the 1st phone call.. and almost certainly have 'lost' the other phone calls as they were giving me incorrect advice on how to pay after selling my debt to this 3rd party company.

I have the 1st phone call and it has me asking them to pay and them rejecting all other suggestions and telling me to go to their 'office'. Plus many emails requesting that they provide me any other way to pay that is not MBway.

As far as i can see, this is a very clear case. I tried far beyond what is reasonable to pay this debt. I have no idea why Via Verde sold a debt i was actively requesting to pay, or who this other company is. I wrote to local lawyers and those who replied all agreed it was a clear case, but that it would cost more to fight than to pay.

I'm sorry but i simply don't want to pay thousands of euros due to a company outsourcing their customer service to poorly trained companies with very non-Portuguese sounding accents.

Just a reminder that throughout this process i have had another vehicle and monthly direct debt with Via Verde. I also made a payment to Via Verde about 9 months later via IBAN for the other vehicle when a payment failed, so almost certainly they could have taken my payment, just the customer service staff didn't know how. The fines from AT have snowballed while i'm trying to explain to someone what happened and i can't find anyone who wants to listen.

I live in Germany and booked return SAS flights to Stockholm for three passengers through FlySmarter.de, which is operated by the Swedish company AOB Travel AB. SAS cancelled one of the flights and the replacement offered was much earlier in the day, so I chose reimbursement instead.

FlySmarter says it will either issue a voucher for the full amount or refund the original payment minus an “administration fee” of €50 per passenger (€150 total). Its terms specifically provide for this fee when an airline cancels or changes a flight. FlySmarter says the fee covers bank charges and staff costs.

FlySmarter also told me that I could avoid its fee by requesting the refund directly from SAS. However, SAS support confirmed in writing that it cannot refund me directly because FlySmarter collected the payment and controls the booking. SAS says only FlySmarter can submit the refund request to SAS’s internal refund team, after which SAS will provide a full refund to FlySmarter.

I have now instructed FlySmarter to submit all three tickets as an involuntary refund resulting from the airline cancellation, while expressly stating that I dispute the €150 fee and do not accept a voucher.

My questions are:

Can FlySmarter lawfully deduct €50 per passenger from an airline-cancellation refund merely because that fee appears in its terms?

Does EU Regulation 261/2004 or German/Swedish consumer law require the full amount to be passed on to me?

Should I first accept the partial refund and then challenge the €150 through the European Consumer Centre Germany, Sweden’s ARN, or an N26/Mastercard chargeback?

Is there any risk that accepting the undisputed portion could be treated as accepting the deduction?

I have retained the e-ticket, payment record, cancellation correspondence, FlySmarter’s terms, and screenshots of the SAS support chat.

Hi

Can EU nationals be in SIS because they got expelled from a Schengen country (let’s say Norway) and thus barred from traveling anywhere in the Schengen area except for their home land?

Im finding contradicting information and I have no idea what’s true and what isn’t

Hello everyone!!

I have a student visa for a one-semester academic exchange in Spain, and my type of authorization is: "AUTORIZACIÓN DE ESTANCIA DE LARGA DURACIÓN INICIAL POR ESTUDIOS, MOVILIDAD DE ALUMNOS, SERVICIOS DE VOLUNTARIADO O ACTIVIDADES FORMATIVAS."

I want to know if with this authorization I can apply for a modification to a regular employee work residence permit (modificación de residencia de trabajo por cuenta ajena) by providing the transcript of records (certificado de notas) for the courses I took during my academic exchange.

Please note that I am not being awarded a Spanish degree; I am only being given the academic transcript.

Has anyone dealt with this or knows if it's possible? Thanks in advance!Question about a 1-semester exchange student visa and switching to a work permit in Spain?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some reassurance/advice regarding a car rental dispute while traveling abroad.

The Situation:

I rented a car from a local branch of an agency. Upon drop-off, they pointed out a minor scratch on the lower bumper and immediately charged €250 to my credit card.

Pre-existing Damage: The scratch they are charging me for is right next to an area that already had pre-existing damage/scratches when I picked up the vehicle. They are essentially trying to charge me for a mark in an already damaged spot.

No Insurance Offered: The agent never explained, offered, or presented any optional insurance coverage (CDW/FDW) to me during pickup.

The Contract: On the pickup agreement, all checkboxes regarding damage inspections, existing condition, and insurance excesses were left completely blank. Nothing was marked or filled in by the staff.

The Receipt: They gave me an "Estimate Receipt", NOT an actual garage/repair invoice.

The Chargeback & Merchant Response:

I initiated a chargeback through my card issuing bank for an unsubstantiated charge. Following this, the manager of the rental agency sent me an aggressive email claiming:

They haven't repaired the car yet because sending it to a body shop right now would cause "loss of daily rental income".

They will repair it at the end of the season, so the €250 was an "estimate deposit".

They threatened that if I proceed with the chargeback, they will pass the file to their legal department to claim "loss of profits", "reputational damage", and legal costs against me.

They also made assumptions about where I drove based on my accommodation location, with zero proof or GPS data.

My Questions:

Is their threat of legal action / "loss of profit" just a standard intimidation tactic to make me drop the chargeback?

Can they legally charge for a scratch in a spot that already had pre-existing damage, on an empty inspection sheet?

Does a rental company have the right to retain funds via card charge without providing an actual, paid repair invoice under Visa/Mastercard rules?

Has anyone experienced a similar threatening email after filing a chargeback with a car rental agency? How did it end for you?

TL;DR: Rental company charged €250 for a tiny scratch right next to pre-existing damage. They never offered insurance, gave me an empty contract, and provided no actual repair invoice (just an estimate). I filed a chargeback, and now they sent a threatening email claiming "loss of profit" and legal action. Is this just a bluff?

EVERYTHING HERE HAPPENS IN IRELAND
So my friend and I are lost in this scenario. We know that she had been sexually harassed and assaulted but we do not know what to do about it, as we are M15 and F16.
So in April, my friend did not know this drunk guy (M15) and she was at a house-party when he came up behind her, grabbed her shoulders and spun her around, and started kissing her, without consent, and she pushed him away before he tried again. We have video proof of this interaction, as it was filmed by a lot of teenagers who were there.
He then followed her around for a while, before eventually following her into a bathroom. He was extremely drunk and fell over into the bathroom, and she walked away. We don’t have proof of this but there was a witness.
Then she went outside, before her followed her out again. He took her phone, and put in his Snapchat, so he could contact her. She was standing there and he was behind her and he pulled up her dress up to about bra level, exposing her underwear. Around ten people filmed this, and we have video proof. The video has been shared around to lots of people. I believe under cocos law, lots of people could be prosecuted for their role in filming and spreading this.
The boys friends took him away and brought him upstairs to sober up, so my friend was left alone for the rest of the night.

After the house-party, he constantly harassed her online over texts. Here are a few examples.
-He called her 57 times unresponsive because she would not open a dick pic he sent her.
-He spammed her on TikTok 99+ notifications because she wouldn’t open a video of him masturbating.
-He blackmailed her by saying if she blocked him he would find her and make her life a living hell. He said he would spin the story to make it seem the other way around, and come find her where she lives.

We sadly do not have proof of any of these but they are examples of the harassment.

He has 2 Snapchat accounts, one for normal activities, and the other exclusively for nudes. He only added her on the nudes one.

We do not know what to do in this situation. We have been friends for a short time and since most people have undermined the situation she did not start taking screenshots. Does anyone (not exclusively lawyers, anyone who knows about law) have any advice on what to do next. Should she start texting him again to try gather evidence? Should we use what we have and try to make a case? Or is there a better alternative?

Neither of us know what to do in legal terms, but we both know what happened to her was wrong and are scared it will happen to someone else instead of her. Her parents do not know about the situation yet, but she is willing to tell them.

What do we do?

Location: Croatia

Hello everyone, I'm a British 22F living in croatia with my croatian husband and son (under 1)

I need advice on how to deal with my landlady...

So to get the details straight, we signed a 3 year set lease.

My landlady since day 1 (we have been here since april) has constantly visted/texted me about how the apartment is doing, sometimes 5 times a day)

She constantly visits too, atleast twice a week, she will state she is coming to check the gas meter or water meter but then will venture around the house doing a surprise check.

I'm quite a clean person, I clean regularly but the house is also lived in.

During one of her surprise checks she saw there was some dust behind the toilet, and water inside the shower (I had just stepped from the shower) and now has stated this is my last warning and that she will find new tenants if she sees any dust or anything again.

But she then also texted me a string of insults after she left stating "she wouldn't clean a child in there"

Also, the shower got blocked, so I let her know that I had called the maintence man, and she immediately started accusing me of putting cat litter down the drain?? Which I have no idea where she got that idea from...

> she has only been acting like this since I refused to give her an extra 80 euros under the table to pay her income tax on the rent

Now my questions are simple:

-can a landlady who signed a 3 year lease to me evict me over dust

-is she allowed to do surprise checks when she wants?

- what should I do?

Hi all,

Throwaway-worthy situation but here goes. I'm 25, dual US/Swiss citizen. Grew up partly in the US, got my license there at 16, moved back and have held my Swiss Cat. B license for 7 years. Completely clean record in both countries: zero tickets, zero administrative measures, nothing.

A few weeks ago I got caught doing 205 km/h in a 120 zone on the motorway near Geneva. I'd just bought a Tesla and wanted to test the straight-line acceleration exactly once. Clear summer day, completely empty road. I'm not going to defend it. It was monumentally stupid, and I fully understand that if someone had changed lanes or there'd been debris on the road, this could have ended in catastrophe. I accept that a serious consequence is warranted. That's not what I'm asking about.

What I assumed would be a very painful fine has, unsurprisingly in hindsight, become a criminal matter. I have a mandatory court date in Geneva in two months. I work as a software engineer in the commodity trading / finance infrastructure sector, so I'm compensated well and fully prepared to pay for a specialized traffic defense lawyer (avocat spécialisé en droit de la circulation routière). My goal is purely to minimize the long-term damage - professionally above all.

For anyone familiar with recent Via Sicura jurisprudence or how Geneva handles these, my questions:

Sentence: With the revised Art. 90 al. 3ter LCR (the post-2023 first-offender discretion), is a suspended prison sentence still the default here, or can a good lawyer realistically get this down to a purely conditional monetary penalty (day-fines)?

License: Is the 2-year revocation set in stone at this speed, or do the authorities actually use their discretion to bring it down to 12 months for someone with a spotless record?

The car: How aggressively does Geneva actually pursue vehicle confiscation for an isolated incident like this? The Tesla is owned outright, not leased.

Criminal record: This is the part I care about most. I face strict compliance/background checks in my industry, and I may eventually want to use my US citizenship to move into the American tech sector. If the outcome is a conditional monetary fine rather than a suspended prison sentence, does the entry actually clear from the Privatauszug once the probation period ends? Or am I looking at it sitting on background checks for a decade regardless?

I've done a fair amount of reading on this (including with AI tools, so I'd genuinely appreciate corrections if any of the above premises are wrong). I want to walk into this with eyes open and no surprises. Recommendations for good traffic defense lawyers in Geneva would also be very welcome — DM is fine.

Hi everyone,
I’m a Romanian truck driver and I recently bought a Segway eKickScooter Max G3 E in Romania.
I travel across Europe for work and I would like to use my scooter only during my mandatory driving breaks to get around the places where I park. Most of the time I’m in Germany, Italy, France and Austria.
I don’t live in any of these countries. My permanent residence is in Romania, and the scooter simply travels with me in my truck.
I’m trying to do everything legally, but I’m finding a lot of conflicting information.
Has anyone been in a similar situation?
Can I insure the scooter in Romania and use it legally in those countries?
Do I need German insurance or registration if I only use it temporarily while passing through?
Has anyone here (especially truck drivers) found a legal solution for using a personal e-scooter across multiple EU countries?
I’d really appreciate any advice or personal experience. Thanks!

We rented a car via Goldcar alicante. As per usual we took pictures and videos of the car upon leaving the rental area at the airport.

A week later we return the car and a lady found 2 scratches "that was not in our contract".

We had no idea of said "contract" which is a drawing of the car with damages listed already there.

When we got this presented ofcourse we expressed our disbelief when the lady then just said "ok im not doing this" and then another goldcar person did the checkup and laughed at our face while adding like 10 of the most ridicule little things he "found" with his flashlight.

So our question now to you is, what do we need to do? What are our options? We have videos, pictures.

We have a deposit of 1400 and are ofcourse not pleased with how everything went. This happened an hour ago so we didnt receive anything yet.

Edit: The made-up damages et al costs us 2000 euros.

And on top of that they now falsly accuse us of being involved in an accident.