These posts made me realize that I won‘t ever invest in rental RE.
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I’m not sure I understand, what degree of protection do I lose?
if you ever end up at the schlichtungsstelle and if you are right or wrong you will get 3 year of eviction protection.
However if you ask your Landlord and he just accepts you request, you don’t gain this “protection”.
In practice this means: If you ask for a rent reduction of 25% and they say yes. In theory they could just terminate your contract (you still have the usual protection - its not that easy).
If they haggle with you, and offer 10%, later you both agree on say 12.5%. They cant terminate the contract for 3 years.
The following reasons for terminating the tenancy agreement are permitted for landlords:
- Own need.
- Not paid rent despite setting a deadline.
- Disregard of the house rules.
- Violation of the duty of care and consideration.
Negative. A landlord may terminate at its sole discretion. There is neither an obligation to provide a rationale for the termination.
The only thing that doesnt work are abusive terminations, which result in case of e.g retaliation if the rentee exercised one of his contractual rights (e.g. to go to the rental court) or if the rentor wants to unilaterally force a change the rental contract (e.g. increase the rent).
If it was no abusive termination, there may be delays in the effect of termination. These are mainly due if we talk about older or disabled rentee‘s. It may further be argued that a severe shortage of flats as well justified a (smaller) postponement.
Long story short, as long as it was a competent landlord, they may kick you out at any time and with no reason. If you live in Zurich, you may stretch the notice to 6 months or so (old / disabled people maybe signifficantly more) but if they want you out - you are out. The only defense you had was when you could argue it was a retaliation against you exercising one of your contractual rights. But there, its difficult to justify such; unless your pursuit to claim such right had been escalated to the rental court and you won the „case“ aka got a positive recommendation from them. General practice there is that it defends you for 3 years and an immediate termination after 3 years may give you another 3 years if played well.
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Ok, but in practice, why should a large landlord like Wincasa do it in such case? I assume that the whole effort and possible renovations will never pay off.
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n=1 insight from the housing cooperative world:
My cold rent will be going up by 5% from August, using about two thirds of the leeway permitted by the Zürcher Kostenmiete model.
In addition, the coop board decided not to pay out any interest on shares (my share being CHF 25k).
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I eventually got mine today as well. There is also a “general increase of costs” on top of the interest rate and inflation index increase.
Thanks for the info, this is new to me.
I’m not worried honestly, we are the longest term tenants in the building while everyone else lasts 1-2 years and then changes, so it’s a staple revenue for the landlord.
Also, no kids = much better state of the flat 
Seems that the city of Zurich and Bern will increase rent of the apartments they own by 6-7% on average (except for low-income households):
see article (in German) on SRF
If you contest the increase, does it have the same effect as contesting the tent within 30 days of moving in?
By that I mean: does the owner have to share all their costs etc for the conciliation authority to calculate the legal rent based on the 3% return, which means your new rent is very likely to be well below what you were paying before the increase?
In any case, the MV has told me to always contest new rents and increases: it benefits all the tenants and you will save hundreds per month because all owners and agencies overinflate the rent.
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By that I mean: does the owner have to share all their costs etc for the conciliation authority to calculate the legal rent based on the 3% return, which means your new rent is very likely to be well below what you were paying before the increase?
Yes
Looking forward to my rent increase notification then!!
Update - we received a scheduled hearing in September fron the local authority, and coincidently a call from the regie asking if we are open to “negotiate”… they proposed to scrap the “general increase of costs” which was what I was asking. So just sending the letter has quick results (and only costs a registered letter). I suspect they want to avoid those local courts.
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Honestly, I would go in front of the court.
They know they will loose.
Easy negotiation trick:
“If your first number is very high, you have biased the negotiations to skew higher.”
The rest of the increase (inflation and interest rate) is based on the contract and factual, I do not want to challenge them. Those are new buildings built two years ago.
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I’d still bet that you’d have gotten a bigger reduction going all the way.
They also contacted me and proposed a smaller reduction which I accepted to avoid court efforts.
Hi guys,
I hope you can help me on what to do.
As many of you I got a rent increased notify and day after I made the housing association aware of it and they started the process of claiming.
My rental increase was like below:
- Anpassung Referenzzinssatz von 1.25% per 03.03.2020 auf 1.5% per 02.06.2023 → 45.05 CHF
- Teuerungsausgleich von 101.3 Pkt per 30.04.2020 auf 106.9 Pkt per 30.04.2023 → 33.2 CHF
- Allgemeine Kostensteigerung von 31.05.2017 ausgelichen bis 31.05.2023 → 45.05 CHF
In english:
- Adjustment of reference interest rate from 1.25% as of 03.03.2020 to 1.5% as of 02.06.2023 → 45.05 CHF
- Compensation for cost of living adjustment from 101.3 points as of 30.04.2020 to 106.9 points as of 30.04.2023 → 33.2 CHF
- General cost increase compensated from 31.05.2017 until 31.05.2023 → 45.05 CHF
First, the rental company managing this contacted me by email and letter asking to reduce the 3rd point from 45.05 CHF to 23.05 CHF → a 22 CHF reduction
Then, I challenge back and said that I would like to know what exactly increase in the General cost and that they send me the proof.
Few days after they send me another proposal canceling in full this General cost increase to ZERO.
My impression is that they still have something to loose and they dont want to go to court, could you please share your impressions or experiences with me please? What if I let this be to observe what happens? Do you believe this general increases are correct?
Thanks!!!
Take the last offer with general increase of ZERO.
CPI and Referenzzinssatz is very clear and can’t be challenged (if the calculation was correct of course)