Yes, it is a nightmare. From my understanding, any tenant is considered a bastard, not supported by law. Why? simply. If I have to leave my apartment, I have only two chances during the year. Then I have to send a letter asking to leave the apartment three months in advance. If I want to leave earlier, I have to look around like hell for somebody interested in it and at the same time look for another apartment for me and coordinate when to leave and move in to the new apartment, which is nothing more than stress. Sorry, I am very upset for it. The conclusion is that owners want to have a easy life, money flowing continuously and how care about the tenant.
By the way, the other thing that piss me is that people put ads in homegate.ch, home.ch or whatever web site and the 90% of the cases, you contact them asking to see it, and, if you are really lucky of getting an answer, they say "sorry, it is already rented" ... Dude, then remove the ad from the web site.
Welcome to the Forum. For a quieter life I recommend living in a tent.
My son and I are moving away from here on 15 October. We gave our notice in to the owner on 31st July. In August we have both manaaged to find appartments, both are empty for October ensuring a stress free move. We clean up here after 15th October and we will make the handover at the end of October.
It can be done, but you need to plan things ahead.
I actually find the system very great. At least you know when you move in, the apartment is clean and up to date with the check up of white goods.
Try in Spain and turkey where the owners don't give a dead rat about the state of their apartment, where clean means something from never been cleaned to passing a dirty tissue on the surfaces, where they don't respect the contract and instead to charge 10% of the inflation, they charge 25% and you pay it or get out (Turkey).
Or in Quebec where you move on the 1st of July. Everybody, the same day . Impossible to drive, streets are blocked with moving vans, you are lucky if you get your van on time and doesn't have the other guy's stuff delivered before you had a chance to get yours out and you have now 2 households in the appartment, stairs, sidewalk waiting to go in or moved away. Cleaning? You do it, the apart comes as it is.
Hate to ask the obvious but didn't you read your contract with all these conditions in it BEFORE you signed it? I look forward to your future thread complaining about having to clean every nook and cranny upon departure.
You forgot to mention the whole cleaning/inspecting/damages thing too, and the need to find 3 months deposit for the next place before you get your existing one back.
Even if you read it, you have no option, this is the general rule. I am not the only one that face this kind of situations. When you really need a place where to live, sometimes you are pushed to rent any place even though you know how things will proceed. The competition for a place is terrible. I sent more than 15 mails asking to see an ap., and the answer was "we had so many requests that no more appointment are possible, have a happy search". My a..s happy search.
I can leave any month apart from december, I only have to give 3 months notice, as was the case in Australia too. They don't want a tenant to just up and leave leaving them in the dark... As you said yourself it's no problem finding a new tennant because the competition is so large that that is not an issue! I've never had trouble finding a nachmieter (tennant) to fill when I left an apt.
I don't find the system bad at all, you're pretty much guaranteed to have a clean apt to move into where everything works... Most places you have Laundry facilities on site, Dishwasher oven etc... In most countries even the kitchen needs to be supplied by the tennant, so be grateful for that here!!
Oh btw, apt's come without lights so unless you have some handy be prepared to live in the dark till you get some installed! :P
Well, in Italy I had to give a 6 months' notice and this was the general rule, not an exception. This is why I pay for 3 apartments in 3 different countries at the moment. And the fourth one is on its way - my permanent in CH is going to have some overlap with the temporary one I am using now. But I believe there are more important things to worry about in this life.
Plan in advance ... yes sure, it is so easy to say, Dude, wait for me until I get somebody interested in the apartment where I am living now or just wait me for three months in case I do not find somebody else. Even worse, if you really have to move, you are screw ... you lose you money. Yes, I am very happy, that is the reason why I am writing all this.
We had 4 weeks to find and secure an appartment when moving to CH from the UK. We got the 1st one we applied for, even if it was slightly more than we wanted to pay.
It will be trickier for appartment 2 though, I suspect.
So where are you from? How does it work in your home country?
Are there laws to ensure the new place is clean and working, or do you have to clean up after somebody else and hire a carpet cleaner to get the cat sick off the carpet, and then find the bath drain is blocked?
I am genuinely interested. I have rented in 4 countries (UK, Malaysia, Germany, and Switzerland) and it is tough here, but the system works well.
I think moving home is stressful no matter where you are.
The Swiss system seems to me a good one, everything very controlled. Unlike in the UK, where we are renting out our old home and have had two tenants doing a moonlight flit, owing rent , and leaving the house in a disgusting condition. We have been renting it out now for over five years, have had five separate tenants and despite having no mortgage to pay, have hardly made any profit at all.
It is hard to find the right apartment/house here. And some of the ads are blatantly lying. Our apartment was advertised as family friendly, yeah right, our kids got grief from day one from our child hating neighbours. I was looking to move out after two months of being here. We have been looking ever since.
I do get the feeling that apartments on housegate are there because they havent been able to find a new tenant anywhere else.
Doesn't "family friendly" mean stuff like proximity to shops and schools, along with facilities on site (lift, gardens, play areas, quiet area)? Rather than whether the other residents are lovers of children or not, which is impossible to quantify or substantiate in an advert...
Sometimes, I think there's a tacit agreement amongst the residents that this is unofficially a "no kids" house, and you see this reflected in the adverts when a flat comes free.
I've seen a few where they have said "unsuitable for small children" (even though there's no danger in or anywhere near the house for children), "quiet couple preferred" (never "quiet family"), etc. - I even read one for a 350 sq.m. 9.5 room house with a garden in a quiet neighbourhood which very clearly stated "preferred tenants are a couple, or perhaps three adults"!
I've lived around families with kids all my life so I don't really understand the problem, but I suppose it's better being upfront about it rather than everyone being miserable further down the line. If a flat is advertised as family-friendly, that should really include the other residents
Our building of 5 flats was also down as a "no kids" place and remained that way for the first six years we were there but shortly after, 4 of the 5 flats all had babies within 18 months of each other. Even the agency that runs the place commented that there must have been something in the water supply...