Betreibung every time although I pay immediately?

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
Hello people.

I would like to thank you in advance for any feedback you give me as im in a difficult situation.

So my wife, 2 children and I live in a building with 2 house (Dobbeltfamiliehaus) where the electric bill for the shared are (garage/frontdoor area/shared garden) is split 50/50 and is billed to my neighbor, and they send us the bill for our half and we pay them.

For the last year we have a huge fight where the neighbor lady came onto our private property (back yard) and punched my pregnant wife in the face, which I have on video and we reported this to the police and the neighbor lady got a Strafanzeige for this.

As you can now imagine, she now tries everything to get back at us, and one way is with this shared costs for the electric bill of the shared area of the building. We are going to get an electrician to build a box so we no longer have to depend on her to create invoices for us everytime the bill comes in.

What she does is this: the bill comes in, she send us the bill via post and submits a Betreibung literally the next day without our knowledge. We, of course, pay the bill, which according to the law makes it to where we officially acknowledge this debt and although we pay in full and on time, we still get the Betreibung. It doesnt matter if we made the Rechtsvorschlag or if the Zahlungsbefehl follows afterward. Once we pay it, it means we have acknowledged the debt as valid and she neighbor wins with this Betreibung and we cannot do anything about this.

I just don’t understand this loophole. I mean, if we pay the bill that she sends us, we will always get another Betreibung. If we don’t pay her, we will get the Betreibung anyway.

We have now one Betreibung already. Actually 2. My wife has one, and i do too, as the neighbor makes 2 of them one for each of us.

I have it black on white (in writing) the dates that show that the neighbor created the Invoice for us on kets say Monday and she submitted the Betreibung 2 days later on Wednesday.

I guess it comes down to one question, If i get a lawyer, can I win?

THANK YOU SO MUCH

2
What the hell? Is this even real?

If this is legit;

1) Move

2) Surely the betreibung people can see that she is filing these repeatedly and is a trouble maker - and they should stop her from being able to do so. Have you spoken to them? Or the police maybe?

3
Do not pay the bill when the betreibung comes. Contest it.

Yes, get legal advice. It's too late to get legal insurance, but you need to stop acceding to this person. Don't worry too much. Some Swiss friends of ours had a similar problem with their landlord. They still managed to get a mortgage without issue. It seems that the mortgage provider (UBS) could recognise frivolous betreibung.

4
Unfortunately, Switzerland hasn't quite got to the understanding that some people might corrupt this system. They don't see to have the concept of vixatious litigant.

5
Given what happened before, reporting to the police might not be a bad option.

Additionally, if you have the electricity bill, you can contact the electricity company and ask if they can change the billing address so that you will receive them instead of the neighbor.

6
And then issue her with the Betreibung!

7
I left that part intentionally out

8

I do not think you legally accept the Betreibung when you pay the original bill. You only acknowledge the debt in it self.

Further, such a Betreibung is against good faith and a violation of Art. 2 ZGB . The Betreibung should be void based on Art. 22 SchKG . Next to the Rechtsvorschlag you have also these option :

Art. 17 SchkG, a direct complaint against the Betreibung at the upper authoroty (Aufsichtsamt). You have 10 days from receiving the Betreibung to file a complaint. You must show why the Betreibung was made in bad faith and why it is a pure abuse of the system.

Art. 84 and 84a SchKG were you can contest the Betreibung in court.

Art. 88 ZPO were you can get a declaratory judgment from a court.

Further, you can use Art. 73 SchKG to force the other party to show their evidence.

I would consult a lawyer, then use Art. 17 / 22 SchKG (based on Art. 2 ZGB) and see if either Art. 84, 84a SchKG or Art. 88 ZPO should be used as well.

Important in the Art. 17 / 22 SchKG approch: Observe the time limit (only 10 days!), send it to the correct authority, justify your complaint correctly.

9
The way I understand it you have the right to contest the "Betreibung" without even justifying it. That puts the ball directly back in your neighbour's court and they will have to make a case to justify going any further. It's unlikely that will happen as there will be work and costs attached to this.

It is important that you do contest each act that's sent to you, otherwise you risk having entries in the debtors' register.

10
Yes, it’s called a rechtvorschlag...

11
Who is the landlord? The aggressive neighbour?

Otherwise get in touch with the landlord asap.

12
After consulting a lawyer.

13

Holy f***, this takes me back …

  1. you need to go get legal advice immediately - don’t get an electrician. This is not a setup problem, this is a crazy person problem and you need the LAW

  2. you need to look for places and move the hell out of there ASAP

Talking from experience, the mental trauma of these situations is not worth it. At some point you will decide to move anyway, so you might as well save yourself the pain until you reach that point.

Best of luck, and may you have infinite patience.

14
Assuming your neighbour is not also your landlord; can you ask your landlord to get the electricity bill sent to them, and then for the landlord to bill you both separately?

15
I have the impression that OP owns the house.

If it is a rental, then electricity for communal spaces should be a part of the annual "Nebenkosten" bill, IMO.

16
There are several legal arguments that one could try:

- you could argue that the Betreibung was too early, if your neighbour has put a payment deadline in her invoice (and even if not arguably, the payment deadline of the initial invoice would be implied);

- you could argue that this constitutes an abuse of rights (since it is purely retaliatory) and thus void.

If you have legal insurance I would explore it with a the lawyer from the legal insurance.

If you do not have legal insurance and it really is a matter of principle and you want to spend real money on this you can contact me but admittedly my hourly rates are on the high side.

If you are not renting but actually own your property (in which case an entry in the debt enforcement registry is not that relevant) you could just let it be (and get a separate electricity meter installed.

17

Why did she come into your back yard and punch your wife in the face?

18

First of all THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your replies and providing me with this information. It is greatly appreciated and is helping me further with dealing with this issue.

This is real. I wouldn’t make it up. We’ll be moving next year, right now it’s just not possible.

We’ll be reporting this to the police and probably submit a request for a Strafanzeige for violating Art. 2 ZGB ( https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2…5_233/de#art_2 )

The electric company will not help us as they require signatures of both parties in order to change the name on the bill, and the neighbor will never sign this.

After consulting with a lawyer we are now writing the Canton authorities and the police and we’ll provide them with evidence that the neighbor is doing this out of spite and to try to ruin our credit worthiness. Trying to talk and sort this out with the Betreibungsamt themselves got us nowhere and they got actually very rude on the phone and had the nerve to tell us that if the neighbor submitted a Betreibung against us then in their eyes we indeed didn’t pay… My wife and I got so pissed but we kept our cool since we’ll probably have to deal with these people again… We gotta play it smart for the time being anyway… I guess we must go to the police with this since she violates the law Art. 2 ZGB and we’ll just try to get her with another Strafanzeige… Now we already contacted the electrician to install another electric meter so we never have to depend on the neighbor again and she’ll no longer be able to do this to us. This is a must from our side as another invoice will soon be due and she’ll for sure do the exact same thing again.

We are the landloard of our house. And the neighbor is the landlord of theirs.

Long story made short… The building is a Neubau. We moved in the same time the neighbor did and we both have our garden area which is private, and we also share a graden area which is shared area. There is a water faucet on each of the private garden areas. One is ours and the other is theirs. They were having an issue where theirs stopped working so the neighbor would JUST COME TO OUR BACK YARD AND START USING our water hose to spray their garden. NOW, the water itself is “gemeinsam” which means shared and we pay for it 50/50. which was her reasoning for coming and just taking it because it’s “her water too” but EXCUSE ME the water faucet is our private property and the garden on which it is installed is our private property (back year) so after a few times my wife cought her doing it and that\s when she punched my wife in her face.

We are the landlords of our home, and the neighbor is the landlord of her home.

THANKS AGAIN PEOPLE

19
Another question I'd have is... if I order the electric box and have it installed and it costs for example 3000.-, can I demand that the neighbor pays half of this? Since this is affecting the houses themselves and the way that the bill is handled? I mean, after all, this affects the building itself, both parties, not just our part?

Also, I forgot to mention in the original post that when she created the original invoice for us on a Monday, she gave us in writing 5 days to pay but she did the Betreibung literally 2 days later? Which is still inside of the time window that she gave us to pay... There is no more talking with the Betreibungsamt. They are of no help whatsoever ZERO. I guess it's the police at this point...

20
Consider issuing a Hausverbot.

If she enters your open property (say, the garden) again (not the jointly owned parts) she commits Landfriedensbruch (trespassing or similar), a crime prosecuted upon request. Without that it's only a crime after you order her off and she refuses to leave. This way, if the waterhose event occurs again it's immediately reportable.

As for selling ... they might be trying to get your house. Make sure you're not selling to the neighbors or their patsy.