There has to be some time limit, doesn’t there? What is the magic way to make them pay? Send a letter by Einschreiben saying something or other?
Or can they just drag it out forever?
They said I didn’t clean the toilets well enough on move out (entkalken). Therefore they said they would take some from the deposit to do this. It’s been months now and they keep saying „ Wir klären dies ab und melden uns nochmals bei Ihnen.“
Legal insurance?
Otherwise indeed Einschreiben letter with a deadline. They are not allowed to keep the whole deposit for covering the cost of 1 thing anyway. Threaten with Debt collection procedure and follow through.
K
The legal time limit is one year.
Also have a chat with your personal liability insurance - you may be covered. When I moved out of rented I got a +3000 bill almost halved when the insurer sent round their loss adjuster and told the landlord to stop taking the piss.
I was in the opposite situation - the landlord want his money back and I was in no hurry...
When did they say that? What does your handover protocol say, and did you sign it?
Generally, apparent issues need to be identified during handover. The landlord may have a couple additional days afterwards, probably subject to the details, but definitely not weeks or months.
If there's neither handover protocol nor a list of issues compiled within days, the landlord is unlikely to hold anything that's considered acceptable proof for apparent issues such as calc deposits in the toilet, meaning they have no way to hold you liable. However, they still have a full year to release the deposit.
Legally the deposit may be held for 1 year, this is to be sure there is money to pay for heating costs etc which are sent by the administrator to the owner in time for the annual meeting of homeowners. However, today this can be usually calculated very quickly, so there is no real need to hold the deposit this long anymore. We aim to return the deposit on departure and maximum within 10 days.
Another point, the landlord should have held the deposit on a separate account to which you are both signatories. If he hasn't done this then he is breaking the law.
If you used a cleaning firm, this would have been part of the guarantee usually provided by the firm and should have been redone at the handover. If you did the cleaning yourself, you also could have fixed this at the time or settled the matter then and there by agreeing on a sum of money to correct the problem. There should be a written inspection report signed by both parties.
Unfortunately there is no magic way to make them pay. They can take a year, which is a very long time considering that even outstanding utility costs can be settled in far less than a year. The only thing that seems to expedite the matter is leaving the country as there are rules on keeping a bank account in Switzerland if you are no longer resident here, even a rental surety account. Of course this assumes the deposit is held in the proper bank account. If not, then actually there are more options available to you.
Are you dealing with a private landlord or a property management company?
There are many threads on this topic. This is not a new problem so I am not sure why you started a new one.
This is not correct. The landlord cannot hold the full amount for 1 yr. Only to cover costs that may come or for dage/ repairs according to protocol. So if it's the heating costs you cannot hold in the thousands.
Thank you. I learnt something from your post. Of course, I went to read more, because I, too, had thought that it was okay for the landlord to keep the deposit for a year after the end of the rental contract, while the landlord was waiting for all the heating bills. But you are right.
https://www.derbund.ch/wie-lange-dar...n-989573826855
This article sets out that if there are no damages , then the landlord should refund within a month or a few months. And if the landlord cannot - yet - make the calculations about the heating costs, then only the anticipated reasonable portion may be help back, and not the whole deposit.
If, as in OP's case, there are damages , or at least parts deemed not to have been cleaned sufficiently, I'd imagine that the principle would apply by analogy, in that the landlord would be entitled to hold back only as much as would be needed to cover those damages/extra cleaning (plus, of course, the anticipated heating costs) and that the rest should be refunded.