Hello friends,

Things have not been working my way from last couple of weeks. After a bad exp with online shpopping, now it's apartment problems. It's so difficult to close monetory transaction in this part of the world!

My question: I was staying in an apartment since June 2005 which I vacated in Nov 06. I had to get the house painted since I broke the contarct terms.. It's clear so far. Now, from my gurantee amount they have deducted an amount of Sfr. 700 saying these are admin charges for 2006. There is no explaination on the same, and there was no such clause in the contract.

The people are not very friendly and keep saying that they are sorry every now and then, promise to call back, but never do so. It's been 3 months since I am trying to call/mail them. Nothing has worked till date.


I was staying in Ticino. Could you please explain if this admin charges are to be paid by everybody??
My aregument is:
- There is no such clause in the contract.
- If they have not deducted any amount in 2005, then why in 2006?
- Why cant they give any deatils to what the admin charges are?

What I have paid so far:
- Rent / month
- Maintenance charge / month
- Water n elec charges / quarter
- paint charges (since I broke the contract)
- Heating charges (once in a year)

and now admin charges??

Has anybody faced any such discrimination?

Thank you all for reading this!

I guess this is a classic case for the mietverband. Strictly speaking the rental company can and often do charge for administration. This is usually an agreed percentage of your total rent and it does indeed come once a year normally with your nebenkosten(Spese addizionali) bill.

But what the hell is with the painting - this is a classic Swiss way to make money...

Do they not put this admin charges thingy in contract?

Sounds like the CHF700 admin charge is a try-on added because you decided to leave after 18 months and they have to go through the palarva of renting the place out again.

It's an amount big enough to be worth writing on a bill, but small enough, they hope, for you not to challenge legally.

I can see their point. I mean your short tenancy and house painting business (what ever that is) doesn't help matters - especially for future expats wanting to rent...

Sorry Richard
I beg to differ,through business and private we rent a lot of flats,as the original poster stated he broke the contract whatever that might have been..............
It could be for example that they said strictly non smoker and put it in the contract and the tenant huffed and puffed away on fags,you won't believe how quick the walls will be stained,BUT the leaving tenant has

A) not to pay him/herself for it, it's the the liabilty insurance that does( which is mandatory to have when u rent property here)
and

B) paint has a 'shelf life' of ten years in renting property,so say if the flat was painted completely before the moving in and the tenant stayed 2 years in the property,then he'd have to pay 80% of the damaged walls,say for example living room to remain with my example about smoking. But the tenant has certainly not to pay for painting everything en bloc.

Some tenants seem to forget that the rented property has to be given back one day when they move out, in a similar state they took it over when they moved it ( minus the obvious normal wear and tear of course).


Admin charges is what we, the landlords, have to pay to a rental company,for doing all the running and paperwork for us,this is seldom included in a rental contract,even not through the charges!!!!! At least here in Ct.Bern.

The best bet of bshar( if there really is no statement/list/details of this costs in ANY contract) would be to get in touch immediately with either the tenants association of ticino http://www.asi-infoalloggio.ch/ where they will advise what to do.

Best of luck

EE

Thanks, Richard for the wesite link. The only thing that is bothering me is the langauge barrier. Do they reply to mails in English? Is it a paid service or something?I will mail them anyway?


Yes, there is no clause in the contract about admin charges whatsoever.

I broke the contract just 'coz my work contract is getting over and I must leave. As per contract terms for leaving the apartment I was supposed to inform them 3 months in advance of the contract-start-year (i.e. in March, since I started staying in June), which I could not.

For that they accepted my request iff I pay (100%) for the painting of the house, to which I agreed. During inspection they crosschecked the checklist to see if there was any damage. It was then decided that they woud pay the amount in full (3300) minus painting charges(1100).

Now, when I received the payment, I see something as 'balance payment' (700) which they are clainming to be admin charges. I never knew about it before.

There is absolutely no problem with the apartment as I was mostly travelling during my stay here. Moreover, they had approved it personally during the inspection.

BTW are the admin charges that much?? Or do I need to pay for it?

Thanks EE, for the link

What do you say about AbFab's comment - "It's an amount big enough to be worth writing on a bill, but small enough, they hope, for you not to challenge legally."

Is it worth it?

first and foremost it seems not to be legal what they do,well as far as i can see it.
they are apparently trying to sell you apples for pears, in a way at least.

Your 'mistake' was that you had to leave earlier than was agreed, so you couldn't hand in your notice for the flat.

If i understand you correctly, you left the flat in november 06 but the contract would run until february 07 ( right?) as you apparently didn't offer them a suitable follow up tenant to take over the flat/contract from november 06 onwards until offical end of your lease, you only owe them the rent for these three months ! and nothing else ( apart from the last meter reading of heating, electricity etc)!

generally you have to announce three months before leaving ,so you should have written them by 31st august of 06 at latest, that you'll leave by end of november 06.

if they charge you for repairing damages that you obviously not did (damage the paintwork) and try to cover up this situation that way,then this is not legal as far as i can see.

Not knowing the rent of the place,would it fit if you added theamounts together that the amount then paid in TOTAL would be the outstanding three months? then and only then it might be correct.

Do write to the tenancy office relevant for the area you live in ,it's in the orange bar on top of the website i gave to you,they all have email addresses ! The ticino teeming with tourists, i AM pretty sure there is someone who understands english!

Good luck!

EE

The break up of the cost (Sfr 700) is as follows

1. gas oil consumption
2. heating/insurance
3. electricity charges
4. drinking water
5. tax cancelization
6. lodge expenses
7. builidng admin cost
8. misc

I have been paying my elec and water bill every quarter of my own. Now why are they charging me for this again?

Can anybody throw some light on this?

1. gas oil consumption
2. heating/insurance
3. electricity charges
4. drinking water
5. tax cancelization
6. lodge expenses
7. builidng admin cost
8. misc


it 'could' be that this charges are what accumulated during the three months until you were officially released from the contract.

Plus possibly your share of the of the heating used in your flat (sometimes the charges are not sufficient to cover this, or if the thermostats were set on high you used more fuel than average )usually this bill is sent once a year after the heating period ended,but as you moved out before that time,it may be that this is it now.
However, the water and electricity are something I don't get, as you obviously didn't live there anymore and thus didn't need it.

But like many posters before me said,it's really best to get in touch with people who ' are in the know'

Good luck!

I mailed to the e-mail Id at http://www.asi-infoalloggio.ch/
There's no reply from them. Either they don't understand English OR.... and the phone no. too seems to be incorrect!