Who can issue me an 'Unwiderrufliches Zahlungsversprechen'?

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
I have say 50.000 franks on their account, and I need a bank that can issue me an UZ for that amount. Which banks would do it?

2
Not sure what you want. If you want irrevocable promise of payment either get a bank draft or a payment guarantee?

3
pretty much any swiss bank that offers mortgages.

4
I guess any bank could do that!

5
I asked my ZKB today, and they said they can only issue it if I take a mortgage.

6
Ask them to issue a bank guarantee for that amount. They will then block the funds obviously.

7
Tell them politely, if they don't help then I may have to move my account to some other bank!

8
Why not cash? 50k isn't that much.

And kick ZKB to the curb.

9
The term "unwiderrufliches Zahlungsversprechen" is used for the purchase of real estate. Banks will generally only issue them if you are financing the purchase over them (hence the reference to mortgage, of course if you have sufficent funds with them to cover the entire purchase and you are discussing the purchase with them, they may be more flexible). The reason Bank's will generally only give a "unwiderrufliches Zahlungsversprechung" with a mortgage is that (i) they only have to pay if the purchase goes through, and (ii) if the purchase goes through they get the security.

If unrelated to a real estate purchase, you will need a bank guarantee as already suggested. With a bank guarantee the real question is (i) when can it get pulled/drawn by the beneficiary, and (ii) is it a covered or non-covered guarantee...

10
I have the same issue as the original poster and I was wondering if someone would know what to do.

I want to buy a property and I took a mortgage from BVK. The rest of the money I have in UBS, but they basically told me that they "have no idea" what this irrevocable promise of payment is and I was the first person they sa that asked for that. Same happened to my partner with her bank ZKB, tbey also refused to do something about it.

Has anyone taken out a morgage from something different than a bank, and what do you do to acquire this promise of payment?

PS: I am new to the forum, but its an endless source of wisdom ao thank you for that!

11
As far as I understand, when a bank issues an "Unwiderrufliches Zahlungsversprechen", it commits itself to paying a certain amount on your behalf to another party.

For example:

You purchase a 1M flat, with 800 000.- in mortgage.

You must generally have the downpayment on a blocked account with the issuing bank, and the rest of the amount is guaranteed by the property as a collateral. This way the bank takes zero risk.

Then, on the day you sign, your bank sends 1M (most often it's less, because part of it is sent to the tax office instead, to cover the tax dues, or to another bank to absolve an existing mortgage) to the vendor's bank account.

And... that's it.

So here your problem might be that you're stepping off the beaten path (rarely an easy thing to do in Switzerland). You have a mortgage with BVK, so one assumes they are the one who get to use your property as collateral. By rights, they are the ones who are going to send the payment (or part of it) to the vendor.

But (I assume) you want to pay part of the purchase price directly from your funds at UBS. It might have been easier to put those funds into your downpayment (perhaps there's a good reason you didn't -- I don't know how things work with BVK).

UBS probably doesn't want to commit to paying the money without it being blocked on your account (otherwise, you could theoretically just withdraw the money and leave them with the bill -- and no collateral).

So, what to do?

I'd ask first and foremost your advisor at BVK. You can't be the only one in this situation, and they have a duty to advise you. The ideal solution would be to relocate your USB funds to BVK (I assume they have your downpayment already?) and have *them* issue the damn paper. That would neatly solve all your problems.

But I've no idea if this is possible with a non-bank entity.

Or contact the notariat and ask if the contract can be amended to include a direct transfer from your UBS account to the seller's account, on the day or purchase. (Do warn and discuss with your UBS advisor in advance, depending on the amount this might not be possible).

12
Thanks for the answer! I have asked BVK and I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm a bit surprised that going for something else than a bank is not that common as they seem to give much better rates.

13
or just ask for a confirmation that the mortgage is approved.

14

I already have a confirmation that the mortgage is approved. I am wondering about the rest of the payment. I guess that the "usual" way through a bank would be that they manage that because your funds are already with them. As BVK is not a bank I suppose that they can only issue a document for the mortgage amount and the rest I have to deal by myself (I'm still waiting for an answer from them, but I suspect what the answer will be).

Is there a way to just send the money to the seller/agency? What would be the risk there?

15
Well, I was about to purchase a hole in the ground, but talking to banks really surprised me. The first bank told me that they don't finance holes in the ground as that brings them negative balance on some stats and generally the meeting ended short. The second bank told me similar thing, but the reason was that they don't want to bother with supervising the development progress at this moment. They said they used to do such thing, one would transfer to them 20% of the purchase price and they'd supervise the process releasing chunks of the 20% to the developer according to construction progress.

so in the meantime I had a second, a third, etc... thought and I also came to conclusion that it doesn't make much sense to buy a property