My husband has a new job and we are leaving Switzerland

We are not all leaving together so I was wondering when we should de-register?

My daughter left last week as she as tests to do to get into a new school. I will be leaving with my son on the 24th August. My husband officially leaves his current employer (after working his 3 months notice) at the end of October is waiting to see if they can release him earlier. My husband will leave Switzerland as soon as he has finished work and we have sorted out the house.

We have given notice on our house (6months) and we are currently searching for new tenants to take over. Potentially we could end up paying rent on it until the end of January! I will return to Switzerland only to oversee the packing and cleaning of the house.

My questions are:

1) can you de-register when you are still renting a house (ie if we do not find a tenant in time?

2) can I de-register with the children and then be allowed to come back to clean out the house?

3) should we de-register as a family?

4) if my husbands company put him on gardening leave can he de-register and leave Switzerland even though he will continue to earn money here whilst on gardening leave?

5) if we do not find new tenants for the house but are prepared to pay up front to the end of our notice period can we hand the house over early? Would we still be responsible to maintain the Gardens?

6) should the landlord then find a new tenant and we have already paid in advance for the rent should he then return the money to us?

7) Assuming that we find new tenants and my husband gets released early on Gardening leave and we de-register and return to the UK. Where would my husband get tax on his salary durung this time?

I understand that we cannot cancel Swisscom, other utilities and our Health Insurance until we have de-registered. The children will not need their medical insurance as from 24th Agust and I was intending to take out a annual travel policy that will cover me whilst in Switzerland cleaning out the house. Our monthly insurance is pricey so I want to cancel it as soon as I can!

Sorry for all the questions but so much going through my head! I tried searching the forum but couldn't find anything!

I think you ought to go to your Gemeinde and ask there, but until you have de-registered you will still be paying Swiss tax. You will have to go to the tax office and pay the final bill.

Husband could ask for his extra last pay to be put into a new account in maybe the Berner Kantonal Bank. Then the Swiss tax people won't see it (Other Canton) and the UK cannot touch it. If you transfer it to UK then you might get taxed on it, but you can sneak it over via the ATMs.

You really want to de-register as soon as possible to avoid the health insurance. You might need to buy a pre-pay SIM card for the phone.

Your problems with finding a "Nachmieter" are a separate matter to the de-registering. You need to talk to the owners and come up with a date for the handover. Are you aware that even if you find a tenant you are still responsible until the date on your contract. If the new tenant defaults on the rent, you will have to pay up until 31st January 2012 !

.

Hello,

1. ask the "Gemeinde" if you can de-register if you are still renting a house
2. yes you are allowed to come back to clean out the house, (almost) everyone can come to visit Switzerland for up to three months (holiday visa)
3. every person has to be de-registered separately at least in Canton Lucerne
5. you have to read what it says in your contract if you cant find anything contact your landlord.
6. see above

I wish you and your family all the best for your move back to the UK!
Hope I could help.

Best regards,
Alpine Fan

I don't agree, Ittingen. "Cheating" won't help them save much, and can give them an awful amount of headaches. You can de-register whenever you want, because when you do they ask you WHEN you will be leaving. The downside to de-registering in advance is that they take your Auslanderausweis on the spot. You'll have to go around with your passport, or whatever local ID you have.

Regarding your open questions:
3) If you have a Contract-dependant Visa (e.g. your visa depends on your husband's) you CAN'T de-register independently from him in most cantons. If might be different where you live, call them up and ask, or check their website.
4) That is cheating. De-register in advance with a given end-date. You WILL have to make your tax declaration anyhow, and they will ASK you for your employer's summary of earnings. If they want to find out, they WILL find out, for sure.
5) You can certainly negotiate that with the landlord. If you pay upfront and he accepts the keys to the house, he might be able to rent it. He should be OK with the gardening, but he doesn't HAVE to. Must negotiate, I'm afraid.
6) No, he doesn't have to. If he is nice he might, though. Just don't hold your breath.
7) You will be taxed at source, here.

But beware, you CAN de-register now with a future date, and you can use that to cancel Swisscom and all utilities in your name at a given future date. Ask your Rathaus for a de-registering confirmation that you can fax/e-mail the utilities companies.

Ok thank you for your replies. We are uk citizens so I think it is best I de-register myself and the children with effect from the end of August and then get my husband to de-register once he has a leaving date. I can then come in as a tourist with travel insurance to clean out the house.

Regarding the tax we do not want to doing anything dodgy but I just wanted to know where it would be taxed. I was more interested in saving money by canceling our health insurance! I already have a pre-paid phone so I guess I will cancel the tv, phone and Internet as soon as my husband de-registers.

Ittigen - I was not aware that we would be responsible for the rent if the new tenant defaults but at worst case scenario we are prepare to pay the rent until January 2012 anyway. Is this still the case if we find three prospective tenants and the landlord choose which one to go with? Thanks for pointing this out.

Could anyone tell me the word in german for De-Registering - Many thanks

That would be "abmelden" - "sich bei der Gemeinde abmelden" / to de-register at your town hall..

I believe

Each of you should deregister within a month of leaving Switzerland. You should also get the Gemeinde letter as proof that you are leaving and send a copy of this letter to all the contracts you have with SANITAS, EWZ, Insurance etc, so you can get out of their contracts and get a refund if the contract term still remains.

I went to the Stadthaus Zurich (tram to Paradeplatz, go to Sprungli corner and walk towards the river past the Savoy Hotel, Entrance on the river side) to deregister.

They all spoke English (very well).

• You go to counter 13/14, present your L permit, they spend 5 minutes tippy-tapping into the computer and give you a piece of paper.
• They direct you down the hall to the tax guy. Take a ticket, wait 5 minutes, in you go. He taps for 3 minutes, pronounces everything good, stamps the paper and back you go to 13/14.
• Waited 10 minutes as a small queue, more tippy-tappy for 5 minutes, you're pronounced "good to go."
• If you want official confirmation (the "Attest"), take the post-it note with your "number" on it, go upstairs to Room 130 and pay your CHF30 (or CHF50 if you want it in English). This took another 10 minutes.

Bob's your uncle. In and out in about 40 minutes, given queues around lunchtime. I reckon if you go about 10:30am, you'd be in and out in 20 minutes.

They did not take my L Permit. They explained that I should use the Attest at the border crossing for duty declaration, if required, and even gave me 3 photocopies for sending to various agencies.

We just went to deregister this morning, at our little village commune. It was very straightforward: we told the chap that we're leaving, gave him a new address in the US (we don't actually have one yet, but he was happy enough using hubby's work address), and he gave us each a copy of the official 'this person is leaving' letter, to send off to the insurers and so on.

He let us keep the permits too, and there was no charge for the letters. We're leaving on the 13th October, and this is noted on the letter.

Now I'm just preparing a 'we're leaving' letter in French for the health insurance/ electric/ Swisscom - Billag is even easier, as they have a 'cancellation of service' form on their website that takes mere seconds to fill in.

I recently deregisterd in Zürich and find RaveDJ's description accurate. However, I do want to point out the following about your visit with the Tax Man:

- He wants to know how they are going to find you to pay your outstanding taxes and who is going to prepare taxes for the current year. I contacted my accountant and asked for a Power of Attorney. I brought the executed document with me and handed it over, making the accountant the point of contact for everything going forward. It would be so much easier if taxes were not paid in arrears!

- He will check to see if you are up-to-date on your taxes, meaning that all FINAL bills have been paid. For example, my 2010 bill is not finalized (although I have an estimate of what is owed) so I was not asked to pay that yet.

so the final tax return has to be done from overseas then. not easy i guess as all the documents have to be sent to the accountant

Thank you RaveDJ for this precise post... it helped me a lot today when I was there for de-registeration.

Thanks a lot for the information. That helped a lot!