We and others in our building received owner's rent termination notice due to demolition of the property. Reasoning is as below;
how can we check what rights we have? anybody experienced similar before who can recommend some insights?
thanks
'have had experts inspect the condition of the buildings over the past few months, particularly with regard to building services, the energy balance and also with regard to the requirements of contemporary living. Based on this assessment, it came to the conclusion that no lasting improvement in the situation could be achieved with selective remediation. The property will therefore be demolished in favor of a new building, and the corresponding building application will be submitted soon.'
You'll certainly have quite a long time before anything happens. For the building going on around us now (truck reversing up our road at 5:50am... ) the residents got about two years. The longer term residents were assisted by the redevelopment company.
As a resident you can always object to the rebuild, pretty much as long as your funds hold out.
Argggghhh, that's so annoying, if you want to carry on living there.
Yes, as bowlie said: join the tenants' association: Mieterverband in the German-speaking cantons, and Asloca in the French-speaking (and, I think, also in Ticino). I believe it will be unlikely that you will get in extension (but you might) if, indeed, they have a health inspection report stating that the building should be demolished.
Find out the time-scale that the owners have in mind, so you know when the bulldozers will arrive.
Ask the landlord whether they own other apartment buildings and could offer you something in one of those, at an equivalent rent for equivalent size (or different, if you now want to scale up or down).
Don't pretend this isn't happening. Do all you can to find a new place.
Once you find your new place, you might want to leave right away. To this end, well in advance, negotiate a written agreement with your landlord that if you ever want to do so, you will be allowed to give a shorter notice period (say, just 2 weeks) than your current contract states (which could be 1, 2 or 3 months). Remember: they want you out, and will usually be glad of those tenants who are ready to go.
We once got kicked out of a building we lived in as it was sold and was eventually converted into a home for assisted living, which required major renovations. The buyer (Retraites Populaires) waived our notice period and assisted in the relocation, both by giving us priority if we wanted to apply for another apartment owned by them, and they paid for movers as well. As we had purchased an apartment that we were waiting to be built we simply stayed put until our new flat was finished. We ended up having the slightly odd experience of being the only residents for about 8 months: we could make all the noise we wanted and could do laundry at any time. It was great! And one further advantage was that we didn't have to do the état de lieu/ handover inspection.
Consider that it will not be possible/easy to find a nachmieter or subletter because the building will be demolished. If you have fixed moving dates (as few as 3-4 a year) you may want to time moving to the new place according or hopefully getting the notice period waived, if possible at all.