Dear EF members,
I left my flat at the end of November returning to the UK. I gave the landlord the correct termination lead time and at the handover he agreed verbally that I would get the full deposit back.

I have now received the deposit but he has deducted over 500chf for what looks like parking charges based on some calculation which I cannot understand. As "proof" of these charges he sent a copy of the bill from the parkhouse which covers all the parking spaces he rents and hand wrote his calculations on the form.
In my rental agreement I was already paying for the parking place and there was no mention of any additional costs.

Is the landlord allowed to make these sort of ad hock charges without first informing me and if not what is the best way I can proceed in getting him to return this additional charge.

What is written in the contract you signed?

You should of received an Abschluss-rechnung which only when mutually signed by landlord and tenant can sanction the monies due to the landlord, assuming specified within.

Your deposit should be in an account in your name and only when the bank receive the mutually signed instruction shall it allocate the money accordingly

Thank you for this information, there was no such doument given to me and it is interesting that looking at bank statement the mony was a cash deposit not bank transfer which i would of assumed to be the case.

If you received no Abschluss-rechnung, and furthermore, no confirmation from the bank where the deposit holding was set up, which would clarify money repaid to you and money repaid to landlord, then it would appear that perhaps your landlord never even placed your deposit in the correct holding account. I thought this was required by law, you may want to look into that, though I could be wrong.

Seems you have two options:
1. Look into the legality of how your deposit was handled and go from there.
2. If you learn the landlord was entitled to do what he has seemingly done I.e not placed your deposit in the correct type of holding account, then you may have to accept this as a learning experience and be glad you wasn't totally ripped off altogether by receiving nothing back.

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Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary, Blaise Pascal

Was correct notice to the Parking company ? They may be charging for a different notice period.

Often cash deposits are used so exactly where the deposit came from is not clear, it happens all the time due to the desire for secrecy in CH.