Renting out apartment as a furnished place for temporary renters

Accomodation, House and Garden
1
I’m guessing I would just have to inform the management of my apartment, and then make up a contract?

There may also be implications regarding my Swiss residency?

I am wondering if I could put up an ad for my apartment as a furnished place, looking for people interested in 3-mo or 6-mo or whatever, for internships or temporary jobs or whatever reason people have for such things. Then if I find someone good and trustworthy, I would rent to them, possibly even at a discount versus my normal rent payment, and then would take the opportunity to spend some months in an Airbnb or similar short term rental elsewhere in Switzerland, or maybe outside Switzerland.

How feasible does this sound? Does anyone have experience or know what the market is like, what kind of tenants one finds?

There are some questions like, what if some official mail from the government comes for me and it is Einschreiben... I would need to come back physically to pick it up myself I guess? I know about Poste Restante, I don’t know if that helps. I guess within Switzerland I could just pay for mail forwarding. I don’t know if that would put up any red flags though; like the residency officials thinking I’m doing some kind of tax avoidance scheme by living in a different canton than I’m registered in or something.

Although my situation is already silly because I already work remotely in a canton far from where I live.

Basically I’m not looking to make money or anything, am not pressed, but I want to explore and not be tied down to my apartment so much. I work remotely so work is not holding me down.

In theory I could switch my main residence to being a relatively cheap room in some WG, and just use it to crash and to get my official mail. I have a former roommate who I could maybe arrange this with anyways.

But I’ve got my apartment here furnished and stuff, and I do like it, and so to move all my things into storage or into another place would be excessive. And in the end I’m not sure how much time I’d want to spend here versus away. I’d rather just try it out and see how I like it.

Anyone able to offer some sanity-check on the idea or tips or personal experience? I always feel like the regulations are a minefield and I still haven’t developed a good intuition for whether something in Switzerland is feasible or not without major headaches, or risk.

If I have to ask the apartment management, what is the likelihood they would allow it and would it be a big headache or could I make the process easier somehow?

2
I'm "exploring" occasionally since the shift for remote happened. Renting for a month or two in the other side, in the mountains, etc. Just plan ahead and you'll find a place for less than 1k a month. In addition you'll have cheap daily GA ticket to check your mail at home. Is it worth to risk renting your "lovely furnished" place to a random stranger? I've given my apartment a few times to people I know, even before COVID, know at the level that at least I know where or how to reach them if I'd have to complain.

3
I would just leave my apartment empty though if I weren’t at least making a dent in the rent, and nobody I know is going to randomly want to rent an extra place here. I don’t know many people from abroad other than US and they aren’t coming often. Europe I haven’t gotten to travel yet to get to know anyone.

Did you notify management?

Now that I think about it I do recall there is a standard clause in rental contracts about people other than you staying in the apartment; some limit on the duration.

The thing the other poster doesn’t recognize is that my oblivious thinking-out-loud post is the only way to go about finding out, without just jumping in and taking a risk. The rules always differ from reality and only people with real experience know.

4
For most people, the first consideration would be if there was any risk to them loosing their work permit. All permits have rules concerning residency and permits for third country permits on top of that.

So if a citizen of a third country were to rent out their apartment and go live in France for nine months, working remotely then they’d have broken the residency rules and demonstrated there is no need for them to even be in the local labor market!

So best make sure you are not going to put your permit or citizenship objectives at risk to start with.

5
From residence permit and tax perspective, there is a main residence (center of life). At least living 180 days in there in a year.

From the mental health perspective, it depends on how you handle being responsible for an apartment where you don't live. The one subrenting knows that you're the one that has to talk to apartment manager/owner. Some people are good people, others take advantage of these contractual terms. So, it is worth for a few months rent?

6
In principal, yes, you are allowed to sub-let. You have to get written permission from the landlord. This is serious, because if you do not let them know in advance, that's legal reason for your contract to be cancelled immediately. Landlords generally do grant permission once you submit the contract to them, i.e. so they know they won't be majorly disadvantaged by the sub-let, which would be the case, for example, if you're single and quiet but wanted to rent out your place to a family or a music band. Also, it has to be clear that you do intend to return to the apartment.

Check the rules of your permit. Axa says 180 days (that's per annum, total), and I've also heard only 90 days.

Read your rental contract to find out what it does or does not allow with regard to sub-letting. Whether or not a prohibition in your rental contract is legal, is a separate question to address.

Search: mieterverband untermietvertrag. That's the Tenants' Association. There you will find a good outline that sets out the conditions. You can download the standard subletting contract from their website, for free.

Include a deposit in your rental contract. Set the rent reasonably. You're not allowed to get rich from this, so the rent you charge should be the same as you pay, less a reduction for any parts you've blocked off so the sub-let tenant can't use them, such as your cellar or attic, plus you're allowed to charge a little more if you're leaving it fully furnished.

Re-direct your mail to a trusted person, even if you have to pay someone a fee to receive and open your mail, scan it, and send it to you. I'm not sure whether this is still a service, but for some time the Post Office did exactly that, and would e-mail the scans to you. Ideally, this arrangement should run completely separately from your tenant.

Is your apartment in Zurich? What are you offering?

7

Great idea. The scanning service just change name but it’s working https://www.epost.ch/en/private-indi…anning-service

8
Are you a member of Mietverband, the tenant's (later edit) association? I would definitely go and talk to them and get all the pros and cons, and possible legal issues, and how to formulate a contract and discuss insurance issues too.

9
They won't care, as the sublessor OP is on the wrong side of that contract.

10
Edited- it is the 'tenants association' and this is exactly what they specialise in. The OP is a tenant, who wants to sublet to another.

11
Well, um, kinda. You're both right, I think, but from different angles.

The Mieterverband do make free info available, to which I referred, and also, very helpfully, a blank standard contract to use. They will help a main tenant only if they have any trouble with their own landlord to do with, for example, obtaining permission to sub-let.

After that, however, the only party to that contract whom they will help is the sub-tenant, as the main tenant will have slipped - at least with regard to the sub-let - into the role of a landlord.

12
Different contracts, rather.

The MV will deal with the aspects of the main contract from OPs perspective, as OP's the tenant.

However they won't deal with the subrent because in this case OP's in the position of the lessor.

To complete it: The MV would however deal with the sublease from the subtenant's perspective.

13
Did you check out ums.ch?