The company that I work for (Nestlé) got us an agent to take us around looking for apartments here in Vaud. I was told that the agent gets paid from Nestlé for the service provided and that for this reason they should be neutral in their recommendations.
The agent provided us a list of apartments, one of which was in the area of Chavannes-près-Renens. This apartment was on the ground floor and we were given the price as 2300.- + 300.- for the charges.
When we were inspecting the apartment, the caretaker for the building told us that there was another apartment available on the 5th floor of the same building. This other apartment was not on the list that we had been given earlier. Nevertheless, we went to see this other apartment as well, and while there, were told that the rent for it was a 100 francs less than for the one on the bottom floor.
We were told that the reason for the price was that the 5th floor apartment was 10 square meters smaller. I asked the agent then if it meant that the rent was 2500.- including charges, just to make sure that I had heard her correct. She said yes, it was. We told the agent that we wanted to apply for this apartment, and she sumbitted an application in our behalf.
I should add here that this happened in June, and that we were specifically looking for an apartment where we could move in beginning of September, as we are waiting for our household items to arrive from Australia.
The agent had also been requested by Nestlé to help us with the registering our daughter in a school in the area near the apartment. She wanted to do this a couple of days after we had told her that we would take the apartment. Nothing wrong with that, but it just gave us a feeling that she was very eager with getting it done, as we were supposed to move to the apartment first in the beginning of September.
In any case, some days ago I received an email from the agent, stating that the lease was ready to be signed and asking for written confirmation on that we agree with the rent. In her email she said the rent was "CHF 2840.- (charges included) as you were aware of".
I had to reply to her with that we certainly were not "aware" of the rent being 2840.-, as we had been told it was 2500.-.
This of course has since then become a bit larger issue, as the agent was of the opinion that we must had misunderstood the amount and that we had "promised" to take the apartment.
I was looking at the other threads here in the Housing section, and noticed some responses about "verbal contracts" being binding in Switzerland. I am assuming that this does not apply to a prospective tenant saying that "yes, I would like to apply for this apartment", but please someone correct me if it does.
In any case I wanted to know what are the possibilities of getting out of the apartment contract in following scenarios:
1. you have said you want the apartment, and the landlord has prepared the lease and sent it to you. You have just not signed the lease yet.
2. you have signed the lease and have mailed it to the landlord, but have not yet made any payments towards the security deposit or the rent.
thanks