We live in the uk and would like to buy a holiday home in Switzerland. My husband is English and Im Swiss. Does anyone know the rules about this? Can we purchase any house/flat and start using it and renting it out as a holiday home or are there restrictions on this?
Many thanks for any help.

There are a few threads on the subject so a quick search might yield a few gems for you. Such as this one.

Swiss housing market

I know an English couple who rent out their apartment. They are not allowed to rent it to anyone long term but only as a holiday home. They used Interhome for this. They found that difficult as they had to book the weeks they wanted in advance so if family wanted to use it at short notice it was difficult. I think they now don't bother.
Location is critical if you plan to do this. Some areas do not attract high rentals and by the time you pay costs of cleaning etc you have to judge whether it is worth it. You also have to pay taxes etc.

I bought a holiday home near the ski resort of Savogin 6 years ago.
I was living in the UK at the time andf got a mortgage from UBS.

I now live in Senegal and advertise it on Holiday lettings and a german website.
You can see it on www.holidaylettings.co.uk type in Savognin

I pay some small taxes in the canton of Graubunden. I now live in Senegal and I am shortly planning to sell it to part finance a hopefully permanent move to Switzerland. I would be happy to provide further details via message but
it is a very nice large 55m2 for one bedroom apartment. 200.000 chf unfurnished or 215.000 chf with furniture.

In any case good luck with your search, happy to help anyway, Philip

I think it now depends very much on where you want to buy and the local Kanton rules. Today in the NZZ is an article on the matter, apparently foreigners are now buying less holiday homes here now for a number of political reasons. http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/schweiz/wa...nkt-1.18268633. Since you are Swiss you may be able to bypass a lot of the crap but I know a couple in my neighborhood with the same UK/Swiss status and have been blocked from making any renovations that would have allowed them to upgrade the property. After making such a substantial investment into an older 70's holiday home with limited historical architectural value it's really disheartening for them. It will be a big court fight and lots of legal fees and who really wants that? Most of the properties here need significant upgrades to bring them to up to modern standards but when faced with unreasonable legal objections why bother as they are now faced with years of uncertainty and court costs. I get the impression this "bausprechen' is a Swiss national sport but may be wrong.

if you just want to buy to rent and if you are EU B visa /Swiss residents you should still have the same rights as other resident Swiss citizens, for the time being at least.

Hi all

Thankyou for your replies so far. I guess it doesnt come as a surprise that things depend on which canton we buy in. :-)
I wasnt aware that they could actually stop from renovating..
Looks like we have to really do our homework before buying.
Philip how much of a deposit did ubs want? 40%?
I will have a look at your flat but at the moment we are busy buying a new house here so dont think we will be able to buy till next year.

When we bought it the British pound was very strong 2.30 francs to the pound so it was amazing value. UBS took a 23% deposit and we took a Libor Mortgage for the rest, the interest rate initially was around 3% but has now dropped below 2% i think. This is easily covered by the lettings but there are the other costs to consider, the communal charges for the building. Electricity and heating are very reasonable.