A lot of people got stuck in the wrong place during the pandemic and I heard a few stories from people who missed Betreibung letters of varying levels of legitimacy
The Betreibung letters demand a response in 10 days, if you dispute the debt, you have to tick the box to register your objection and return it to the post office or Betreibungsamt
For a very long stay abroad you can de-register and then nobody can start a Betreibung against you.
For somebody who wants to go away for shorter periods, for example, one or two months, is there any way to ensure Betreibung letters are automatically rejected or frozen during the absence without completely de-registering?
I've heard some very wealthy people and those who operate as self-employed are having all their bills redirected to their accountant's office and the accountant ensures everything is handled within deadlines but I can't imagine everybody can afford that.
Get your neighbour/friend to empty your mailbox periodically and let you know about anything that looks urgent. That would require you to be on speaking terms with your neighbour/have a friend and trust them enough to let them have a key.
Luckily the post office will also hold your letters or redirect them for a fee receiving-mail/holidays-and-absences
There was an startup named Klara that offered a service of paper mail scanning. It was bought by Swiss POst on 2020, service was disrupted for a while but it seems it's back online.
So, it's now creatively named epost https://www.epost.ch/en/private-indi...rvice#scanning
So, company X sends you paper mail. The paper is redirected to a scan center. Scanned content is sent to your phone. 9.90 CHF/month.
The scanning service would be useful to catch the bills and reminder letters while abroad.
The Betreibung notices served by the post office are not quite the same as a letter, the postman shows up with a form and if somebody answers the door, you can tick the box on it immediately and he sends your response back to the Betreibungsamt.
If nobody answers the door, he leaves a card, like a registered letter but the person named on the card has to go to the post office and the Betreibung form is presented at the post office counter. I don't think they will allow a neighbor to see it or sign it.
The legal insurance (Rechtschutz) told me it is necessary to always tick the box rejecting the claim and then find a way to sort it out directly if the bill is legitimate or use the legal insurance to defend it otherwise.
I searched for Betreibung on the Klara site and didn't see any information about how they handle this process. Does anybody have a Klara account to ask their helpdesk?