Hi! I have a question regarding the early termination of the contract. I lived in the student residence, renting a room from the organization which calls itself non-profit public company. I signed the contract with the company and did the guarantee payment. The notice period is 3 months but I had to leave urgently so I informed the organization only 2 weeks in advance. I freed the room in September. Given that the organization has a waiting list of students who want to rent rooms, and taking into account that the demand for September is the highest (due to the beginning of studies), the organization should not have had any difficulties with finding another tenant. Nevertheless I provided the organization with the name of a person (from the waiting list) who would be willing to take the room.
Now, the organization is charging me a fee for “finding a new tenant/for early termination of the contract”.

Nothing is said about this fee in the contract, neither something about the fee is mention in the tenancy law of the canton (Neuchatel). Based on this law, it would be enough to provide a lessor with the name of at least one person willing to rent premises. I sent a letter to the organization, stating my disagreement with the charges based on the above mentioned. The organization however insists on my paying the fees. If I don’t pay, my guarantee payment will not be releases. Do they have the right to charge me the fee? The amount is not significant, I could have paid it, but I just thinks it’s a pure theft.

Thank you in advance for your advises!

The clue's in the question, I'd say

Sounds par for the course (if you'll pardon the pun...)

My psychic powers are at bit of a low ebb at the moment, so perhaps you could say how much is the fee they're charging you, relative to the rent - 1 week? 2 weeks? 1 month? 2 months? The full three months?


Knowing that, one might be able to venture more of an opinion

Pacta sunt servanda...

Ita vero!!!

The fee is 50 chf. But I dont think the sum really matters, since , to my knowledge, they don’t have the right to ask for anything… or am I wrong?
I actually paid these 50 CHf to release the guarantee payment, but I still want to know if it was correct from their part to ask for this money…

Thanks for your replies!

50 CHF. It sounds small enough to be an admin charge.

Yes. They have incurred a cost, doing the paperwork and such for the new tenant. Because you want to leave early, they have to prioritize it over other ongoing activities. They are charging you an admin fee to cover that (small) hassle.

I don't think 50CHF is bad at all although I wouldn't consider myself that well informed on this.

When I looked up the details for leaving my apartment I read that the landlord had 4 weeks to arrange / choose / sort the new tenancy with the person/s I suggested as new tenant/s.

Considering that this has all been completed in under 2 weeks I think you could have lost out / paid considerably more for being able to leave in such short notice.

I would pay and be grateful that it all got sorted so quickly (particularly in relation to the Swiss rental market). Not worth fighting this even if it is on principle - would be too costly anyway to fight. Like others have said 50CHF seems like an admin charge (also in the way that they / you have described what they have said in your post) and seems pretty reasonable to me.

I've been trying to remember the last time a bit of Swiss administration cost me as little as chf50.

Still trying; watch this space...

I would agree. That appears to be the cost of opening the e-mail. Be prepared for the reading costs.

Even if you provide a replacement tenant, you're required to give the landlord a "reasonable" amount of time to come back from vacation, check the tenant's credit history, get someone to draw up the new paperwork etc. It's not specified anywhere what "reasonable" means in this context, but according to the Mieterverband it should be at least four weeks.

If you were able to leave on two weeks' notice, I'd pay the CHF50 and count yourself lucky.