Home-owners are in principal responsible for maintaining the physical quality of their dwellings. It is in their own interest to do this in an adequate manner, but all kinds of constraints can and do occur in practice. Lack of financial means and insufficient (technical or practical) knowledge are only two of the possible barriers. The quality of owner-occupied housing sector exceeds the individual interest, there are also general concerns to consider. Qualitative seriously substandard owner-occupied dwellings can have various negative effects on the neighbourhood. This paper is based on an on-going research project on the quality and maintenance situation of the owner-occupied sector in the Netherlands. Within this project almost 4.000 Dutch home–owners have recently been questioned about issues concerning the quality of their dwelling, the maintenance actions they undertake, the problems they encounter and the help or advise they would like to get. This paper presents the first results. The results especially will give insight in the way home-owners cope with maintaining the quality of their dwellings. Are they doing an adequate job or are interventions of the Dutch authorities (for parts of the sector) necessary?