Would you recommend any lawyers?
Ideally someone plain and simple, who regularly deals with normal property purchases, maybe with British-style no purchase-no fee guarantee.
Lawyers (solicitors UK) are not used in Swiss property purchases. Legal matters are dealt with by the Notoriat in the area where the property is being sold/bought.
It took a while for me to get my head round this and for the first purchase here I consulted a law firm. All they were able to was produce a long list of things that could go wrong - and nothing else...
You ned a notary which is what you would probalby call a lawyer, go to your commune, they will have a litst of notaries
Oh, and forget “British-style no purchase-no fee guarantee.”
This is Switzerland even quotations are charged for!
Where to start...
First, it might differ from Canton to Canton so take that with a grain of salt.
It's been said before, but in my Canton of Geneva we do not use solicitors but notaries. I bought a house recently, and my wife who is English was extremely confused when we went to the notary with the estate agent. As the notary act on both sides, she was convinced the real estate agent was the seller's solicitor until I explained to her how it all worked. Everything is codified and it makes property purchases a LOT cleaner, and a lot smoother here in Switzerland. So I wouldn't necessarily be taken aback by taking a recommended notary, they have a role to act in every parties' best interest.
So, as a few of the people have said, you are giving your money to a company of which you have no idea what their credit worthiness is. Knock yourself out chasing them via legal when they go bust.
Bit of work to do - I did construction in the UK and still have projects there. You can get work done cheap if you know what you are doing in the UK. Here, we are due to get the keys soon for our house, but I do not have the choice of hiring some cheap Poles to do some work. That means, I am going to do almost all the work myself, pay an architect some stupid amount to get my planning through and then a sparky CHF 500 just to say I did a good job with the electrics... To give you an idea of price difference: to get a heating pump installed with solar panels to replace a fuel installation I was quoted CHF 65k (and they connect to your existing heating system, don't even replace your radiators!) For shit and giggles we looked with my UK business partner how much it would cost me in material to do the same in the UK: less than CHF 15k... You want to import material from abroad? Get ready to spend countless amount of time paying duty taxes and playing border crossing games with getting there when the border is operational etc... In other words, if you think you can do your house on the cheap, think again. CHF 500k for a 3 bedroom house full remodel is not an insane price in this country.
Finally - just walk away from this. If you have any doubt about it you shouldn't even be entertaining this purchase.
To add one thing to your excellent post:
In Schwyz, the notary went to great lengths to explain that his role was limited to ascertaining that the parties understood the language of the contract being signed. The consequences of what we each were agreeing to was not of interest to him in his capacity as notary.
A subtle difference, but important.
I called up a notary in the canton. And they were like -- we only do the last bit, where you exchange keys for bank guarantee. The reservation is legally meaningless and is between me and agent only. The notary actually knew the agent ... he took a long pause and "... well .... they are ... OK ...".
I have already transfered 2k to agent from UK bank account -- TBH all the bank fees seem at around 5% -- not great. I am meant to transfer remaining 18k, but getting cold feet transfering to 1 man band estate agent rather than notary. The house has its problems and my GF is getting panicky I will never get my money back if I pull out.
I need around 3 more days for additional info, but agent is pressuring for money.
Time for you to reread this thread...
@Disjoint Really liked your post. As a local, how trustworthy are (real) Swiss agents? Psychologically it seems weird to give an agent 20k; is it really standard to expect they would return 18k if I pull out; do locals "do it all the time"? I am not that concerned about credit risk, as the time period (duration of the deal) is short.
I don't want to mislead anyone: I am not a local. For me what the agent did to our seller was shocking - I didn't say a thing as it wasn't my problem and I didn't want to fail the sale. I paid the 10% deposit for the house I am buying over Christmas for completion end of May. I unblocked the deposit as the sellers needed some cash for their retirement establishment first payment. Agent made sure to have their share of the sale completely paid for from the deposit. If I walked out, the seller would only have had a fraction of the deposit and the agent would have already been paid with a house still to be put back on the market. So in other words: real estate agents are scum anywhere in the world, Switzerland is no different (there are rare exceptions, and some decent guys I worked with in the UK, but few and rare...).
This is a contract between you and the agent so for you to weight the pros and the cons. If you have the potential intention of pulling out I wouldn't do it - why would you bring yourself the hassle of trying to get your cash back. If you are fairly certain you'll go through this transaction, then it's a small gamble you are taking but doesn't seem to be the end of the world. Hard to advise, on the bright side your notary has heard of them so might not be a complete conman.
Bottom line: you are giving 20k away - proceed with caution.
Thank you. From your response I take it 10% was paid directly to agent rather than notary since he was able to mess with it to own benefit. From what you have seen, would you say paying deposits to agents rather than notariesnis fairly standard in [German-speaking] Switzerland?
I sold 2 properties, both times the reservation fee was paid to the agent (3%), but not 10%. The agent's excuse is that they will anyway keep the 2% for their fee and then pass on anything else to us, so there is no need to take 10%. I do not know if this is standard practice though, but I did deal with a large agency.
Called up another notary. They knew the agent and said I should totally not worry with her -- as she has been long in the business and they had many deals with her. Not using a guarantee / escrow / notary was normal she said.