My apologies if this has already been covered somewhere, but after reading all the relevant threads I'm not getting a clear picture on the matter:

Can your landlord force you to take out liability insurance as a condition of your rent?

My situation is that I have been renting an apartment for a couple of months now, and it appears that my rental agreement lists liability insurance as a condition. Is this legal?

Not having ever had liability insurance, and not believing that multi-billion dollar insurance companies get that way by the payouts they dole out, I see little use for it. Can it be forced upon me in this way though?

You have agreed to it in the contract, so I don't understand your question 'is it legal'?
In Ch Liability insurance gets used to cover repairs at the end of the contract, they will find a tiny mark in the kitchen & the insurance will deal with it. Probably only cost 80 chf a year or less.

Signing a contract does not necessarily make it legal.

You signed a contract voluntarily, you have agreed the terms, end of story!
Had you refused that part of the contract, you would not have got the apartment, the Swiss are risk averse & like insurance.

This is Switzerland, where you have to take responsibility for your own actions, which includes signing things even if you can't read the contract.

You're not getting it buddy... you can't sign your children into bondage either.

Even if both parties agree.

A simple yes/no would suffice legal/not legal.

Yes it legal. It is in the contract which is itself a legal document, thus Er set under Swiss law!

So one can legally import cocaine into Switzerland, so long as there's a clause for it in an importation contract.

Nice.

What has drugs got to do with a standard housing contract? Or should I take some to understand?

Whatever works for you....

Just pointing out that the fact that you have something in writing, does not make it legal.

It's my understanding that the only mandatory insurance in Switzerland is health insurance, and fire insurance.

Hence the question whether one can legally make a tenant take on other insurance.

YES you can.

That is why I said yes it is LEGAL and standard in many rental agreements, they are LEGAL documents and it is a term of the contract, which is once again LEGAL..

Your understanding is wrong; there are other mandatory insurance btw for certain cases and Kantons.

You are also wrong about the fact that just cos it's in writing doesn't make it legal, if it's a binding contract and the terms are not in themselves "illegal" then having them in there does make them legal and one could get sued for being in breach, it happens everyday in alsorts of cases!

yes. this is how i made my first billion, but it was too much work, so i sold the business in the end.

i think that this is the question - is it an unfair term that is not enforceable.

an interesting question and i'm not convinced we have a definitive answer given the confusion over the use of the word 'legal'. however, from a practical perspective, if a LL tells me to get personal insurance, i'm damn well going to get it because it sounds like i will need it!

Any clause that becomes part of a formal contract such as this becomes by definition legal and enforceable, the legally binding contract is the agreement of the terms between the involved parties.

This type of landlord contract is quite standard and I doubt it has been drawn up on the back of a beer mat instead by a legal firm and my also be notarised. The insistence of liability insurance is far more common than not and I agree Phil, if they want it it shows they will have no qualms making a financial claim from you!

if by formal contract you mean the written contract document, then the sentence is untrue. not all terms are legally binding and enforceable. this is the crux of the OP's question.

Are you talking specifically about Swiss law, or law in other countries like the UK, where there is a huge amount of consumer protection.

in swiss law. i know that there are various common clauses which are not enforceable, but i'm not sure with regard to requiring insurance.

for example a clause saying "At the end of the tenancy, the apartment has to be repainted by a professional painter at the expense of the tenant." would be unenforceable.

At the end of the tenancy, the tenant must clean and hand over the apartment in the condition it is in, having used it in accordance with the tenancy. According to the Federal Court, the tenant is not under a duty to repaint the apartment. (BGE 105 II 35, cons. 4.b.).

However the tennant would be liable for any damage.......so apying 80 CHF a year would be sound advice.
I think in CH it would be assumed that painting could only be done by a professional painter, so the clause would never be written in a contract!

Clearly some EFers were asleep at their law 101 classes. Merriam Webster defines legal as:

2legal

noun
: one that conforms to rules or the law




Not all contracts conform to the law, regardless of whether they are signed or not.

And you better believe that there are plenty of contracts out there which are ILLEGAL, ie. which do NOT conform with the law. With unenforceable clauses, and which are drafted with full knowledge that said clauses are unenforceable.

All in the hope that the other party simply won't dispute the contract because "they signed".

It would be interesting if an EFer actually knew about the matter, instead of just talking out of their arse, as a poster or two on here has.

Glad you know so much about Swiss Law.

Of course there are illegal contracts but a tenancy agreement is very unlikely to be an example of such over here why I stated contracts such as these. If you wish to fight such a standard housing agreement good luck.

Putting it bluntly, if you don't get the insurance, you don't get the apartment. Or in your case, you would be thrown out. However you could make yourself into a test case, be thrown out of your apartment, take the landlord to court, and be told "You agreed to this clause" "Case dismissed".