Good morning. After 4 years in a house that was organized by my company relocation agency, I am moving by myself for the first time.
There are some details that I don't understand about the process:
1) My current contract is "1 year with auto-renew indeterminately". If I understood correctly I have to give 3 months of advice and leave at any moment? Or can they ask me to pay for the entire year?
2) Many people find someone to replace them and leave early, is this something that has to be written in the contract, or anyone is eligible?
3) The house I applied for is still under renovation and there is a certain availability date. In case something happens and the house is not ready by the time I have to move there, what will happen (assuming I have to leave my current house)
4) On the application form for the house to the agency, there is a fee (300 CHF) that I have to pay in case I renounce the rent after applying. Is this all I risk, or could they also ask me to pay X months of rent on top (it happens in Europe)? Do I also have to pay if I withdraw my application BEFORE being selected?
1- Your contract should have a notice period specified. 90 days is common, but I've read that in some cantons only some dates are allowed.
2- In German, the term for a follow-on tenant is a nachmieter. If you leave outside of a proper notice period, you need to find someone willing to take over the terms of your lease who is financially solvent. Have a search here on EF, there are several threads about nachmieters.
3. If you've given notice on your current place and the new one isn't available, you'll probably have to stay elsewhere such as a hotel or a temporary flat. It may be wise to include a clause in the contract for the new place that allows for your expenses to be reimbursed if the new place isn't ready on time. Alternatively, you can wait to time your notice so there's overlap and just pay two rents for a month.
4. Are you talking about the new flat, if you don't take it? Based on reading EF threads, this fee is not legally enforceable.
On point 4 - the penalty is not enforceable if you withdraw before being selected, that is considered unfairly biased towards the agency.
Once you are selected, if it still applies as a cancellation clause (which it may not) then it may be to your advantage - better to pay a 300 CHF cancellation fee than one year of rent or have to find a nachmieter.
If you're already concerned about the property being ready on the entry date, I'd want to be very sure there's nothing in the contract which allows them to drag this out indefinitely. In principle, if it isn't available then they are in breach of contract and you can simply cancel on that basis, and/or they would be liable for your costs (minus the rent you would pay them) - but most likely they won't have left that point completely open.
From what OP writes there’s no notice period because hers are a series of auto-renewing one-year contracts. Time-delimited contracts can’t be canceled, just the auto-renewal stopped, which determines the end of OP’s rent.
However, when moving out on another date, you don’t really give notice. Most landlords treat it as intended, but technically the entire arrangement ends if you give do notice, which leaves only a few months under the current conditions for the Nachmieter. Instead you declare your intent to move out by X date with the intent to present a Nachmieter (three, to play it safe) who then steps into the entire thing in your stead by starting a new contract under the old conditions. If you don’t present at least one acceptable one, your declaration has the effect of giving notice and the contract ends by the next contractual end date as if you had given notice (by the end of the current one-year contract in OP’s case).
Essentially, by saying you’re looking for a Nachmieter you get the best of both worlds.
The contract for the new home is separate from the one on your previous home, and entirely your problem. If the new home isn’t ready it’s up to OP to find a solution, it won’t hurt to include explicit language to that end in the new contract, for instance that hotel (what kind or which?) and furniture storage costs (where, what about the additional transport necessary) are to be borne by the new landlord.
Any fee for not signing an already filled contract is unenforceable and legally void. Reason being that any such fee interferes with your free will.