Though hard to believe, it’s now only a matter of days before I move into my new apartment. As things are getting finalized, I’m noticing a number of peculiarities associated with the Swiss rental market (at least from an American’s perspective). The following are some of them:
- In apartment buildings it’s typical to have specific times assigned to each tenant for use of the common laundry room. By sheer “luck” I was assigned Tuesdays from 1pm – 3pm for my laundry time. So what does the average person who is gainfully employed do in such a situation? Apparently he’s SOL and has to find an alternative (i.e., a Laundromat). Or one could simply go rogue and intrude on someone else’s scheduled laundry time and hope to not get caught. (I’m not sure what the related consequences are, but given the importance placed on rules by the Swiss, I don’t think I really want to find out.)
- In the lease contract, one of the supplemental pages shows you exactly what the prior tenant paid for rent. In order for the landlord to charge you a higher amount, he has to justify the increase through significant improvements to the apartment. The same applies to rent increases during lease renewals. As a result, it is typically difficult for landlords to increase rents above a statutory indexed level that is determined by the government (and is quite nominal).
- Rather than paying a deposit to your landlord, you instead set up a “guarantee” account directly with your bank. The deposit then remains with the bank and cannot be disbursed until your lease term is up and you and the landlord agree to the amount that should be returned to you. While this admittedly isn’t much different from the standard deposit process in the U.S., it’s nice have the balance of power shifted a bit toward the renter for once.
- In apartment buildings it’s typical to have specific times assigned to each tenant for use of the common laundry room. By sheer “luck” I was assigned Tuesdays from 1pm – 3pm for my laundry time. So what does the average person who is gainfully employed do in such a situation? Apparently he’s SOL and has to find an alternative (i.e., a Laundromat). Or one could simply go rogue and intrude on someone else’s scheduled laundry time and hope to not get caught. (I’m not sure what the related consequences are, but given the importance placed on rules by the Swiss, I don’t think I really want to find out.)
- In the lease contract, one of the supplemental pages shows you exactly what the prior tenant paid for rent. In order for the landlord to charge you a higher amount, he has to justify the increase through significant improvements to the apartment. The same applies to rent increases during lease renewals. As a result, it is typically difficult for landlords to increase rents above a statutory indexed level that is determined by the government (and is quite nominal).
- Rather than paying a deposit to your landlord, you instead set up a “guarantee” account directly with your bank. The deposit then remains with the bank and cannot be disbursed until your lease term is up and you and the landlord agree to the amount that should be returned to you. While this admittedly isn’t much different from the standard deposit process in the U.S., it’s nice have the balance of power shifted a bit toward the renter for once.
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