Is this normal?
Yesterday (Monday 14th May) I recieved in the post a bill from the electricity company dated Thursday 10th May and postmarked 11.05.07. On the bill in bold text it says "Der zahlungseingang sollte bei uns erfolgt sein bis spätestens bis spätestens 20.05.2007"
Given that the 20th May is a Saturday and there is a bank holiday on Thursday, and the bank normally takes 3 days to make a payment, they are giving me no time to pay.
I would say this is totally unreasonable. But is it normal for Switzerland?

Normally in Switzerland you have 30 days to pay an invoice. To me it sounds more like a reminder of missing payment "Zahlung Erinnerung" which gives you 10 days (not working days) to pay.

...or a Mahnung, which even has issue numbers 1er Mahnung, 2er Mahnung, then they come round your house with baseball bats.

dave

I've never seen this before.....most of my bills have had a 30 day period to pay. Even then I know it is possible to then have a few reminders before you get into danger of having the "bad men" knock on the door

If you pay the bill at the end of the month (with all the others) there shouldn't be any problems. As has already been said, before anybody turns up with baseball bats or your electricity is cut off they have to send you 3 reminders.

I take 1-2 months to pay a bill sometimes. I pay at month-end bar credit card and have everything set up by 20th or so.

You miss that, you get paid in six weeks - simple.

I get very few warnings. I'd not worry about it.

This is a very common misconception, but once you have the bill, the debtee is not obliged go send you any letters (Mahnungen, Zahlungserinnerungen - it's the same) before he takes out the baseball bat (read: initiates a Betreibung).

In the past many businesses wrote three letters, but nowadays many think that two letters plus an additional month or three is the more cost efficient route before making a Betreibung.

A debtor only has 10 days to protest (Rechtsvorschlag) against the Betreibung if he disagrees with the supposed debt.