My account
Français
Returning your apartment in Switzerland is more or less simple depending on the termination of the lease. At the end of the term, this is not a problem, but the process becomes more complicated when it comes to leaving the lease before the end of the term. Our 10 tips for making your apartment look stress-free and effortless.
Tip #1: Find my next apartment
Before returning your apartment, you must of course have found a new home. It’s not a matter of starting to look for a new home once you’ve handed in your apartment or even a few days before you hand over the keys. It will always be recommended to anticipate so as not to be caught unprepared and have to either choose a property out of spite or have to go to a hotel or stay with relatives before moving in. The most cautious will even start their search before telling their landlord they want to terminate the lease. This will ensure that your budget is sufficient to allow for a move to the type of housing you want in your target location. To do this, you simply need to determine your project in terms of rent, surface area, location and number of rooms, and then consult the online ads of apartments for rent that correspond to your criteria on dedicated platforms, such as SherlockHomes. Hundreds of apartments available in all the Swiss cantons will allow you to choose your future home before returning your apartment.
Tip 2: Calculate my notice period
Returning your apartment also follows a certain formalism. You cannot return your apartment at any time. In reality, it is not the leaving of the tenancy that is the problem, but the payment of the rent. You are required to pay it until the lease expires. You will have to dig out your rental agreement and check the date on which you can terminate the lease. Be careful, however, that no rider to the lease has changed this term. From this date, you will be able to calculate your notice period to determine when you should send your termination letter to your landlord. To make sure you don’t make a mistake in your estimate, SherlockHomes and its partner PlanYourMove offer you an end-of-lease calculator. All you have to do is fill in two pieces of information: the expiry date specified in the rental agreement and the number of months of notice. The calculator takes care of the rest. To understand, if your next deadline is June 30 and you have three months notice, you will be asked to send your termination letter on March 18. Why the extra time? Because what counts is not the date of sending, but the date of receipt by the lessor. Also, consider a 7 day custody period. With this margin, you can be sure that your landlord will acknowledge receipt of your letter before March 30, the last deadline for returning the apartment.
Tip 3: Send my cancellation letter
Knowing the date to send your cancellation letter is certainly an essential prerequisite, but you must also know what it must mention to be valid. In the case of a termination of the lease on the expiry date, it is sufficient to inform the landlord of your decision without justifying it, and to remind him of your marital status, your contact details as well as the expiry date specified in the rental contract. However, returning your apartment before the deadline means writing a letter that complies with the rules of Swiss law on the subject. If you wish to leave your apartment during the course of your lease, you will have to find a replacement tenant and send the real estate office or the landlord the files of the candidates, then propose a date on which the lease could be taken over by these applicants. To ensure that you are in compliance so that the landlord cannot refuse your termination, you have another free tool at your disposal: the early lease termination letter generator. Simply enter some information (civil status of the lessor and the lessee, contact details, requested termination date…) and you will be able to download your personalized letter in PDF. To return your apartment even before the deadline, simply sign and send the letter by registered mail.
Tip #4: Find a replacement tenant
If you wish to move when you have not reached the expiry date of the lease, Swiss law requires that you provide the landlord with candidates to take over the lease without modifying its conditions (rent, duration…). These potential new tenants will have to meet certain criteria so that the landlord cannot refuse to release you from the lease. First, they must be creditworthy. This means that they must have at least three times the amount of the rent. In addition, they must not be subject to lawsuits for indisputable debts. In order to give back your apartment, it is also necessary to present candidates for whom the landlord cannot reasonably justify his refusal. Example. You are proposing an applicant whose profession is home drum teacher. The fact of disturbing the peace of the neighborhood can be invoked by the owner not to accept this tenant and thus your termination. The same applies if the applicants are the head of a family of 8 children and the apartment has only two bedrooms and measures 40 m². The over-occupation of the premises is indeed a reason for refusal. However, if the applicant meets all the criteria, but the landlord still refuses to contract with him or her, you may be released from your lease and not have to pay rent until the annual due date.
Tip 5: Publish my ad
To return your apartment in advance, you must publish an ad. And the more attractive it is, the more likely you are to interest people looking for an apartment to rent. In the end, you can select the best candidates to be sure to return your apartment without risking a refusal from the owner. Write a few sentences to highlight your apartment by insisting on its strong points, but without omitting its weak points. If it is a top floor without an elevator, for example, it is better to specify it. Also take great care of the photos. These are particularly important because they can make all the difference in an instant. Depersonalize your apartment, tidy it up and, if necessary, don’t hesitate to give it a coat of paint. Then, it remains for you to spread this announcement as well as possible. Thanks to SherlockHomes, you can publish your ad for free and distribute it on the most popular real estate ad platforms.
Tip 6 : Show my property
The wide distribution of your apartment for rent ad will allow you to reach all the people potentially interested in renting an apartment in your city. The result: you risk seeing a large number of potential candidates in your apartment. But you don’t have the time or inclination to spend your days setting up appointments with every interested party. But making your apartment look great has never been easier with SherlockHomes. Your real estate expert organizes your schedule free of charge from the availabilities that you will have informed on the site. You will simply be notified of the appointments made and you will only have to welcome the visitors. To give yourself the best chance of returning your apartment quickly, tidy up, air out and clean your apartment before each visit. Present the property in an objective manner, focusing on its advantages. And so that the candidates can project themselves as well as possible, clean up your decoration and make the small repairs which will have to be carried out in any case before the inventory of fixtures.
Tip #7: Forward candidate files to the board
You may also be wondering how to forward rental applicants’ files to your landlord or property management company. You are not a real estate professional, and checking the creditworthiness of candidates and their morals is not in your line of work. Here again, SherlockHomes accompanies the outgoing tenant who wishes to return his apartment before the annual deadline. You will then not need to request a complete file from the person who visited the property and who wishes to rent the apartment. Your job is to welcome them for the visit, but afterwards, the interested person can submit his file directly on the platform with his proof of income, his certificate of non prosecution or his solvency certificate. The best files compiled will then be forwarded to the property management company or directly to the owner. Under these conditions, returning your apartment becomes child’s play.
Tip 8: Know the response time
The time between the transmission of the file and the acceptance of the owner is quite random, which makes the termination date uncertain. When you want to return your apartment, you should find out the legal deadline for the owner to express his agreement. The latter has one month to check the solvency of the applicant. He can contact the employer to make sure that the employment contract is not fictitious, but he can also check the validity of the extract from the debt collection register on the website or at the counter of the Cantonal Office. The owner has one month to respond and you will have to avoid this. However, the verification of a file can be done in a few minutes, especially if the file is complete and serious. A few days may be enough for a response to know if it will be possible to return the apartment on the expected date.
Tip #9: Get out of your lease
As previously mentioned, there are several ways to be permanently released from your lease. The most obvious is to terminate your lease on the annual due date. In this case, once the keys are handed over, you will no longer be bound to the lease and you will no longer have to pay rent. This is the most direct way to return your apartment easily. You can also get out of it by terminating the lease early, provided, as we have seen, that you have solvent candidates to take over the lease. In this case, the lease continues, but the new tenant replaces you and you are then disengaged. Finally, if the proposed candidate does not satisfy the landlord, but still meets all the conditions mentioned, the lease will be terminated, even if there are no new tenants. Be careful, giving back your apartment is not limited to leaving the lease. You will also need to request the release of the rental deposit. It will be the landlord’s responsibility to forward the documents evidencing the termination of the lease to your organization or financial institution.
Tip #10: Prepare for your move
As soon as the date of termination of the lease is agreed upon, it is necessary to take the necessary steps, both for the inventory of fixtures and for the move. It is even advisable to have done a great sorting and some minor work for the photos of your ad and the visits of the property. But when it’s time to return your apartment, you have to hurry. Set a moving date, rent a vehicle, ask relatives to reserve their day, pick up boxes, start packing what is not necessary for everyday life… The more you anticipate, the easier your move will be and the more chance you will have to recover the deposit. Allow a few days between the move and the inventory of fixtures to do a thorough cleaning. Clean the drawers, descale the taps, redo the joints, fill in the holes, apply a coat of paint, strip the oven, defrost the refrigerator… Making your apartment as clean as possible and in good condition is the assurance that the owner will be satisfied and that you will avoid unpleasant surprises after the termination of the lease. And if you want to make your life easier for all these steps, SherlockHomes’ partner, PlanYourMove, offers to accompany you in your move until you announce your change of address.
This article is not exhaustive and does not engage the responsibility of its author.
