Looking for advice from someone who bought place partway through the year and was taxed on Eigenmietwert for only part of the year, or had it eliminated entirely due to rent still being paid.

Having purchased a house towards the end of last year and having paid rent on the previous place for the whole year I would very much like to avoid paying a tax for the privilege of not having paid rent, which i have paid....

According to a roughly translated Q/A from the Zurich Steueramt pages:
Q: We bought a house in January, but moved in only in July due to renovation work. Must we pay tax on the imputed rental value for the whole year ?
A: No, if the house is not habitable due to renovation you must declare the imputed rental value only after moving in.

Does anyone know how to actually do this ? The tax form has a very simple entry for the Eigenmietwert in section 6.1 "Wert der Eigennutzung". I received a calculation from the Steueramt, which shows the Eigenmietwert calculation and value and also shows the purchase date (late August) - but the value has not been pro-rated and says to stick this in 6.1 of the tax return.

There is a statement on that paper "The definitive fixing of the taxable value follows review of the tax return" - so should I put the whole value and expect them to adjust it ? If so, the best I could expect is to pay only Aug-Dec, but as I was paying rent also during that time I would rather not pay that. Can the rent paid be declared in some way as to offset that ?

Put the number which you feel is right into the form and add a comment why and how you computed it onto the sheet for comments. If they don't like it, you'll get a feedback from them in a few years and will have a chance to fight it then.

I successfully claimed this and it was accepted if that helps.

Same here - we used the date we physically moved, not the purchase date.

It was only a few weeks difference, but deciding on that date and keeping it consistent across all the official documentation helped.

Was the house habitable from the purchase date or was it being renovated?
If it was being renovated and therefore not habitable you don't have to pay the
Eigenmietwert.

If it was liveable and you could have moved into it in August then as far as I'm aware you have to pay it from August until the end of the year. You owned the property then and could have lived in it or rented it out so the fact that you were also paying rent on another property is irrelevant to the tax office. That was your choice.

We paid it from the date we moved in but it was a new build and could only be considered as habitable from that date. We only had one month when we were paying both the rent on our old place and the theoretical rent in the new place.

It doesn't hurt to try to set a lower value and see if they would accept it. Just add a comment to explain it.

According to this announcement, ZH may accept a later effective date of move in if it's not too far apart from sale date: https://www.steueramt.zh.ch/internet...steuerung.html
"Bringt der Steuerpflichtige vor, dass er die Liegenschaft erst zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt effektiv bezogen hat, setzt die Eigenmietwertbesteuerung erst ab diesem Zeitpunkt ein, sofern die Zeitspanne zwischen der Handänderung bzw. der Bezugsbereitschaft und dem effektiven Bezug nicht ungebührlich lange ausfällt."

Almost every time we've seen someone move in Switzerland there's some sort of renovation, even if it's just a complete redecoration. Half the time it seems to be several months of full scale building work, probably because houses don't change hands that often so there's been plenty of changes in fashion/design and it's worth it for a long-term ownership.

I'd be surprised if the tax office challenged a month or two of renovation work.

Interesting question and what does 'habitable' mean. If the roof was leaking, the electricity declared unsafe, no heating and no hot water- then that would be clear. However if your version of inhabitable = you quite fancy a new kitchen and bathroom- but it all works fine just not to your taste- then- I don't know.

If someone has the definite answer, I'd be interested to know.

Can't claim any expertise, but here's our experience:

We purchased the house in March. I would guess that the house would have been considered habitable, as the owners had been living there up to the hand over date. Nonetheless, it was a mess and we had planned to pretty much gut the place and renovate top to bottom.

During the renovation period the water was shut off for long periods of time, as was the heating. I think the electric was kept on the whole time. The house certainly was not habitable during the renovation.

During the renovation we remained in our old flat, and probably most important: we remained registered in that Gemeinde and canton.

Once the renovation was complete in June, that is, three months after purchase, we then de-registered in the old Gemeinde/canton and moved in and registered in the new.

Our first Eigenmietwert bill was dated from registration/moving in, not the date of purchase.

Is standard? Who knows? Our new Gemeinde/canton certainly knew the purchase date and the registration date. We just paid whatever they asked us to. As with everything YMMV, by canton, Gemeinde, phase of the moon.

It may be habitable when you buy it, but if you then immediately rip out the bathroom/kitchen it isn't any more.

Surely the rules would be the same as those used by tenants (since we're talking about Eigenmietwert), per the Mietverband/ASLOCA sites.

But how long does it take to install a new bathroom? Couple of weeks' Our new guest bathroom took longer as we had to rip walls and ceilings, make new concrete floor, insulation. But replacing tiles and fixtures is not a long job.

As for kitchen- same again. When we had new kitchen done in UK- we used the BBQ outside, and the cooker was moved to utility- a bit of a pain, but didn't make house 'un-habitable'. No idea- no expert- just wondering. As said, interesting. Mietverband/Asloca is for tenants, not owners who buy for themselves.

Re. the last statement - yes, but Eigenmietwert is explicitely the rent you could get from a tenant, so my assumption is that the rules should be aligned.

You can't let out a house without a kitchen and tell the tenant to use a BBQ, or without a bathroom and tell them to use the nearest public facilities - the effective rental value is zero for that period.

As an owner we would choose to put up with that rather than live in a hotel, and of course we make the period as short as possible. That's our choice of course, but not relevant to the rental value tax.