Chose your battles carefully: it's a lot easier and less complicated - in their eyes - when you just pay for the certificate of good standing and include it in your application. Once you start complicating matters with 'ifs & ands' you'll lose the attention of the landlord. It costs around CHF18.- so think if it as a small tax on showing your eligibility

Yes. You can apply to multiple apartments at once -- in some places the chance of getting any one apartment can be low enough that you pretty much have to. However, some application forms state that you sign for a "processing fee" for the production of a contract, etc. that you may have to pay if they send you a contract and you decide not to sign. As I understood from experienced people (and based on very limited personal experience) commonly they will call you first to check if you are still interested in the apartment, I guess you can specifically ask that they do.

-- Tom

Here's some general info on the "Betreibungsauskunft" and the "Betreibungsamt".

First of all: the Betreibungsauskunft doesn't say anything about debt (well, not usually, that is). Each district has a local register for payment summons (that's what a "Betreibung" means). That register is local - no records originating in other districts are visible there. So if you had an entry and move within Switzerland, your new district's register won't show that entry anymore.

Payment summons are somewhat controversial in Switzerland because no outstanding balance or debt has to be proven in order for you to send one to someone. That is, you can have the registry send a payment summons to anyone for any amount no matter if the other person owes you anything or not.

If a payment order is unfounded, the receiver of the order can stop the process by filing an objection (a so called "Rechtsvorschlag"). Doing so requires the party that sent the summons to initiate a legal process which will require you to appear in front of the justice of the peace (for smaller amounts) or in district court (for larger amounts). There it will be decided if the amount is owed or not. Smaller amounts hardly ever end up in the legal process because the costs are too high for both parties. So the objection usually stops the process.

Well, so far so good. The controversy, however, is the following: no matter if the summons is stopped by an objection or not and no matter if the amount the summons was for is actually owed or not, the person who received the summons will have an entry in the local registry that can't be easily gotten rid of anymore and that will show up in the "Betreibungsauskunft" for at least 3 years. In order to get rid of the entry, you have to sue the other person. As the "Betreibungsregister" is considered a simple, non-judgmental registry by law, the courts have been more than reluctant to have unjustified entries deleted - so sueing to get rid of your registry entry might not be successful and will cost you thousands of Fr.

Up until relatively recently, the "Betreibungsregister" was a normal legal register that wasn't used for much. However, landlords, banks, credit card companies etc. started (ab-)using it as some sort of debt register (which it isn't, as the entries may be unfounded). This isn't technically legal but so far the federal council has failed to stop those practices.

Because you can have payment summons sent out to anyone, the register, today, is very frequently used as a weapon in neighborhood disputes, by companies that unlawfully want your money etc. Chances that someone will try to screw you by sending you a phony payment summons, resulting in an embarrassing entry in the register are about 1 in 10 for each Swiss resident during his or her lifetime. Once you have an entry, it might be hard or impossible to get a loan, a leasing contract, a new apartment and sometimes even a new job.

The only ways to get rid of the entry are to get the person who had the summons sent out retract it or to move to a different district (which might be impossible because you can't get a new apartment once you have that entry...)

If you have any further questions - I'm the person to ask. I know all about the process because a spammer that I had reported to my employer's legal department found out where I live and sent me one of those summons. That was last year - I still haven't been able to get rid of the registry entry. I had to take a lawyer (thank god for legal insurance...) but the deletion process hasn't been successful because the court simply refused to even look at the case. I'm now in the process of preparing a lawsuit for coercion which is promising to be more successful.

Peter

Updates here, in kreisburo 6, it's 27 for the first one and 2 for the additional ones(you should specify original ones, not just copy). Not sure it's just a rise of price or simply different with areas.

Hi everyone,

Could someone explain a bit more how these Betreibungs things work? I checked on the internet but there's very little I could find of use. I have ignored them until now as I couldn't see them being an issue but I have worried myself this evening. Long story short, I think I have accidentally missed a rent payment. If they had a betreibung would I know about it, from some of these comments it seems to me they aren't compelled to send any kind of demand before they go ahead and get one.

What's my best course of action here? Should I just quietly make the payment, not mention it and hope they don't notice, or should I call them in the morning explain and apologise and make the payment?

I'm pretty keen to avoid these a Betreibung, as they seem to go a way towards ruining your life in Switzerland.

Thanks in advance!

Here's a sticky under Daily Life that you might find informative.

Welcome to the forum

If you can't check your banking records to see if you've paid, I'd suggest just calling the landlord and explain that you can't find your record of paying the rent this month, and can they check theirs just to make sure that you did.

In my experience, what normally happens if you forget your rent is they send a certified letter mid-month to remind you to pay up.

If I am at a canton other than my registered residing one. Can I still go to the local office to get the attestation d'qbsence de poursuite?

The situation is me and my husband is doing flat search in Geneva. As he is thte primary applicant we thought him having the paper will be enough. But when we do an application today, they asked for mine too for my name will be on the tenancy agreement. Do I have to go back to my registered local office for this or can I just do one here in the Geneva office? Thank you.

Only the place where you are registered can issue the attestation.

Make the payment straight away and then phone and apologise. Setting up a standing order for your rent would avoid this situation in the future. You really don't want to get chucked out of your flat for rent arrears as it would be nearly impossible to find another place to live.

Good Luck

GoldK

You might have been overcharged. Just got back from Kreiburo 6, the price is still 17 CHF for the first one and 2 for each additional.

Hi could someone tell me what this (betreibungsregisterauszug) is called in Italian?
I was living in Lugano and just moved to Zurich. I guess I will have to get it from Lugano. Any pointers on which website I can apply for this?

grazie mile
Chetan

http://www4.ti.ch/?id=2435

Thanks a lot

Hi all,

We are starting our hunt for a new apartment and we need to go get our Betreibungsregister-Auszug. My question is...

Do me and my husband both need a certificate? I do not work so I have no accounts or debt.

Thanks for the info.

yes, generally both of you do. It doesn't matter if you work or not - the Betreibungsregister doesn't contain info on your personal debt but on unpaid bills that resulted in payment summons. If you never got a summons, the extract will say so (and that's a good thing - if you have registered payment summons in there, chances are you won't get the apartment).

Peter

Hi all,

I'm a new member of the forum, I actually live in Italy but I will start working in Winterthur on next June.
I'm struggling to find an apartment for me and my girlfriend, but I'm facing the infamous betreibungsauskunft riddle...
The problem is that I went to betreibungs office in Winterthur but the employee told me that they can't provide such document because I haven't lived in Switzerland!
Now, how does it work?
If I don't have betreibungsauskunft I can't rent an apartment, but if I can't rent an apartment I can't have the residence permit, and without a residence I can't have the betreibungsauskunft!
I'm very very confused...

Thanks in advance to everybody will pay attention to my message!

Hi bb82,
I am also italian and I am also moving to Switzerland, Zürich area. From wha I understood the betreibungsauskunft is something like the "attestato buon pagatore" which you can get from www.crif.it I hope it helps.
Saluti

Got to this forum by Google-ing betreib...bla bla bla ;-)
I'm moving in July with my Swiss born wife, she's been here since 1999, and we've got an apartment ready for us... tho got to prove we have no debts in Switzerland :-)... we been asked to provide the Btbsk. which is silly, since we are not even one day in Switzerland yet LOL. We got a letter off to the Consulate in SanFran. I got my 3 free credit reports from the US to give, but since reading all the posts here, I don't think it's going to be accepted... glad I didn't pay for it ;-)

tschüess ya'all :-)

I went to the Kreis 11 Betreibungsamt in Zürich today to pick up my Betreibungsauskunft. Wanted to share my experience to clarify/update some details.

In addition to your residence permit card, be sure to bring your Meldebestätigung paper permit (the sheet the Kreisburo gives you when you first register). I only had my permit card on me, and so I was charged 27 CHF. The fee is only 17 CHF if you present both permit documents.

As someone stated above, they can make copies for you for 2 CHF a piece. But these are literally just photocopies, so you could save yourself a bit of money by simply doing that on your own time.

What makes it original, is the blue stamp. Every original w/colored stamp that you request will 17/27 CHF, even if you get 2 in the same sitting.

Hope this helps!