Do not invest in Swiss property

We lived in Wollerau for 8 years and when we left last year, we decided to keep the flat that we had bought and rent it out. We used an agency who found us good tenants as they were high income bankers- I should have known better. About three months ago, i got a request for a pet as our lease specifically asks for the permission from landlord for pets. We said no. The tenant came back and said that she had made a mistake and bought the dog, thinking that she did not need permission. We said no and happy to work out an early departure but NO PETS. When I called the my realtor, whom I pay for her services, she aggressively said "what is your problem with a dog." The puppy that the tenants have bought will be 55kg; our flat is only 92m2. After a firm second no, the tenants came back and said that they had sold the dog as they wanted to live in our flat! And we believe them. A few weeks ago, we found out that they have brought the puppy home, without our permission! So when I called the agent and the Zurich landlord association as well as helpline on Wollerau canton website, they all said that the fastest way to evict them is via normal notice period-ours is not until end of March 2017. The court system can take up to 2 years! Even though it is the tenant who are in breach of contract and maliciously lied to us about selling the dog; if we had given the termination notice when they initially requested for a pet notice, we would have been able to evict them by Sept 2016. So do not buy a property in Switzerland. The landlord tenant contract has the value of a toilet paper when it comes to Landlord protection

Hello,

A dog into a rental home.......This is not a problemen only in Switserland !

A dog is not a great problem, when the let grow drugs in your rental home, then you have a big problem ! !

I'm sorry to hear what happened. It's quite clear that both the tenant and realtor messed up here. However, I wouldn't say that this should stop others from investing in Swiss real estate. It's unfortunate, but I would think this is an incident, not common practice. It's time to get another realtor.

We have had a holiday apartment in Switzerland for fifteen years and have enjoyed all the time we have spend there. However, things have changed dramatically and we are unable to visit so we need to sell. Although, it is a beautiful apartment in a great location we have had it on the market for a couple of years and reduced the price substantially, we have not found a buyer. We are loathe to let it as we do not want the problems that go along with letting. If anyone has any advise about how we can sell please let us know!

Hi annieb,

Welcome to MySwissAlps! This is not my area of expertise, so apart from suggesting to post the address, price and other details of the apartment here in the forum, I can't help with this. Hopefully someone else can. Sorry to hear you can't visit anymore!

What could have the realtor done differently, when I have an email from the tenant about the fact that they have sold the dog? Although in that same email, the tenant has said that she is looking now to buy a property and the sales agent has immediately sent her some for sale property. However, the agency never told me that the tenant was now looking to buy. They said the have sold the dog and want to stay in your apartment. Which is a lie. If they had told me that they intended to leave I would have given them notice for September.

Well, they did nothing wrong in that stage I would think. They didn't know about the dog not being sold. However, once they found out it was moving in anyway, I feel they should have done more, like telling you about the tenant's intention to buy another property. Again, this is not my area of expertise, but your rules were quite simple: no pets. If people do it anyway there should be consequences for them, not for you. I hope your future experiences will be better!