We moved to Switzerland on February 27th and had arranged a temporary place to live after we arrived. We signed a lease contract on Monday night for an apartment in Wiedikon. The lady wanted us to sublet her sublet for 1 month and that was fine with us. We were supposed to give a 2000 franc deposit and 2000 franc rent by Thursday. Also, she wanted us to have 3rd party insurance (which seems impossible without registering with the Kreisbüro). So, Thursday morning she emails us and says that she is canceling the contract because we hadn't paid the deposit yet. Well, we've tried every which way to get our money out of the US and into some sort of account in Switzerland faster than 10 days and its been impossible. We finally bit the bullet and borrowed money from my dad which was to be wired by Friday morning. The landlady cancelled our contract, though, before she even let us get to the deadline that we had agreed upon.

Mainly, my post has to do with Kreisbüro, though. We registered at the Kreisbüro using the "new" (cancelled) address. We are staying with friends temporarily, but their landlord says that more than 2 people cannot be living here. However, we changed our Kreisbüro registration to our friend's address, but we now only have 2 weeks before that has to be finalized. What happens if we don't get a new place before April? How do we deal with the Kreisbüro?

Pardon ?

Sounds kind of simple. Find somewhere to live, change your contact info with the Kreisburo...

We moved apartments and the Kreisburo actually asked us what they should put down as the 'moving' date...

As long as they know where you are, and you're legal, changing address will be the least of your worries...

Sorry, what was the question ?

your answer involves me actually finding a place to live which seems sort of impossible in this city. Also, I need to be able to call it my address by sometime in the middle of the month of March and not April 1st which seems more normal to me.

Well, it must be possible to register with the Kreisburo even if you are in temporary accommodation, hotel, apartment or whatever. I've even heard of people registering their work address as a temporary measure, although I don't know if that's technically legal...

The main thing is that the authorities can send you paperwork or find you if they need to...

On the apartment side, good luck...adaptability and realistic expectations will work a lot in your favour....check the forum, there are a few apartments advertised at the moment...all depends on your budget...

Short term you could find temporary accommodation. We stayed in a furnished flat specifically for this purpose when we arrived. And it was in Wiedikon!

This will mean you don't have to make a long term commitment straight away and can then search for somewhere that suits all your criteria. It was no problem registering with the Kreisburo from our temporary apartment. When we eventually moved we just reregistered at the Kreisburo in our new area and everything was okay.