Hello,

I have been renting an apartment in Neuchatel, which I decided last week to leave on 31st of December, as I will move.
I found someone to take the house from 1st of January. We went together today to the agency to inform them (meanwhile I had send by post also a register letter concerning the topic).
The lady at the agency told me “I do not know if I will have time to prepare the contract and the sir to take the house on 1st January”.


Can I ask if this is legal? Should I go to Asloca ?

Dec 31 is not normally a date when you can move out and leave your contract, at least in most of Switzerland. I don't know about Neuchatel but I assume this is fully legal. What does your contract say about moving dates?

I think the Dec 31st block on moving is because no one moves at that date and the landlord doesn't want to lose 1 or 2 months rent. If you have found someone to take over immediately and the rent keeps flowing, this should be no problem.

The issue may be the dates, it's really hard to make someone work on Jan 1st to do the assessment of the condition of the apartment. Maybe be flexible for a day or two.

Preparing the contract takes less than an hour. It is as simple as to change the name on the current one, everything else remains the same.

Handover date: January 1st and 2nd are considered public holidays in canton Neuchatel. No handover on that days. January 3rd 2021 is a Sunday, no handover on that day either. Possible handover dates are thus December 28 to 31st or January 4th.
https://www.bj.admin.ch/dam/bj/de/da...-feiertage.pdf