From What I learned, when permit B holders buy a property, it has to be their primary residence and thus they can't rent it.

I was told couples own the property together no matter who bought the property, as long as they're married by law. In that situation, when one of them gets permit C but the other still with permit B, can they rent the property? Permit C holder no longer needs to stay at that property for primary residence but his/her spouse still needs to, that sounds confusing to me...

The second question is when both owners leave Switzerland (and permit expires), can they rent out the property? Is there any regulation on it?

Non-EU B can't buy with intention to let right away, you have to live there for a while, establish a residence. It's not forbidden to rent out if you decide to move out abroad or somewhere else in Switzerland. The law (BewG/BewV) regulates just the part about buying.

It's totally possible for a single spouse to be 100% sole legal owner. Whoever's name is in the land registry is the owner. It can be one spouse, or another, or both in some fixed well-defined proportion, depending usually on how much cash each contributed.

Complications may arise however in case of divorce if you're a couple with "Gütergemeinschaft" status - then your assets are indeed considered shared.

Do you know how long is enough to establish a residence?


So it seems it's better to let permit C holder to own 100% provided he also funds the house/mortgage completely. Will the permit B spouse be taxed heavily when the property is inherited? (e.g. permit C spouse passed away)

It's not defined in the law. I'd guess a year or two to be safe.

From what point of view is this better?

There are no taxes on gifts and inheritances between spouses. Permit doesn't matter for acquisition of property as part of the inheritance (see Art. 7 BewG)

szdro - Sorry to go a bit off-topic here...but you have a few different threads going that are raising questions in my mind. In order to provide you with more relevant answers and make sure one answer we post doesn't conflict with another, maybe you could give us a bit more background on what you ultimately want to do?

It sounds like you're buying a house now on a B permit, but you want to get a C permit under VINTA (since you're non-EU), and then leave CH and rent out the house? Or even just rent the house from the start and stay living in a different municipality. Are you just asking a lot of what-if type questions and this isn't all one grand plan? Thanks for clarifying.

I'd been lived in different countries and owned properties elsewhere but never felt so confused about the situations in Switzerland...

Buying a house is a big financial decision, many friends/colleagues warn me not to do it because of XYZ reasons. After clarifying them one by one had me realized most of them are not true, or at least not as bad as they originally came to my attention.

For example, one colleague told me never to buy a house here because as permit B holders, you have to sell your house 6 months after you leave Switzerland. The mortgage broker told me spouses always co-own the house, it doesn't matter who actually buy the house. A friend told me non-EU house owner can never rent the house so it will become useless when I want to move to other places, it will cause significant loss to my financial situations ... etc

After I studied one issue after another, I started to have these what-if questions in finer granularity. E.g. my wife is not interested in learning German at all, so eventually we'll be in different permit states and then I wonder what will happen when we each own 50% of the property but have different permits. What rules should be applied to that case? It's unclear to me and Ivank's answers clarified my concerns more than I need. It's really helpful.

So, what do I ultimately plan? I honestly don't know. Future is unpredictable to me and I just want to know what cards I have and they can be my input when I have to make decisions one day.

This is completely wrong, there's no law that forces you to do that. BewG/BewV regulates just buying of the property.

However it's not really necessarily a wise decision to keep the house if you leave Switzerland. Managing the property from far abroad is a challenge, you'd need to hire and pay some local guy or agency to run it. AFAIK this is even a legal requirement: authorities and utilities need a local contact for questions regarding to property. And then you'd need to file and pay swiss taxes every year and potentially deal with double taxation issues with your new country.

Not really. You're free to choose when marrying whether you want to have a separation of wealth (Gütertrennung) or shared wealth (Gütergemeinschaft). With separate wealth, you can have the house all to yourself - but it's not a guarantee that your spouse won't get a bite of it during divorce, especially if she's earning less than you and has kids custody.

It may not be a wise decision, but it's good to know it's an option and could be a compromised solution before I can sell it and move on.

That's good to know. Thanks!

Nonsense..

My wife recently bought a house, it is hers and hers alone.

She bought it with her (inherited) money, so it's hers alone.

Inherited assets are NEVER joint, not is anything you buy with them.

Tom

P.S. She paid cash, no mortgage, so that may be a factor.

Even with a mortgage it is not automatic that you share the ownership, I had to specifically ask to get hubby registered as co-owner