I'm looking for accomodation 3 people for a 6 month project near Zurich.

Normally a 'business apartment' would be best but as we're working at the other end of the Zurichsee, they don't seem to exist locally.

One choice is to take a business/serviced appartment in Zurich and commute - not too bad given the excellent train service.

So the other option is to rent a 'normal' appartment i.e. not a business or serviced appartment (we have found one or two where the landlord will consider a 6 month let).

So my questions are:
Is this realistic, as the let will be to a UK company and we have no bank accounts/credit history in Switzerland?

Approximately how long will it take to complete the formalities of renting an appartment?

When renting in apartment, does the tenant usually need to arrange the services: electricity, phone etc? Again can this be done in a reaonsable time baring in mind our lack of bank accounts etc in Switzerland?

Obviously we don't want to spent 4 of the 6 months sort all these thing out.

Any comments welcome!

[Edited]

If money is no obstacle I would take the fully serviced apartment and commute...and get the employer to throw in a first class season ticket so you can plug your laptop into the train and not have to stress out about which carriage you are jumping into...

If you are down at the rapperswil end of the lake, have you tried Zug for a serviced apartments ? quite a lot of expats live around that area...

try the sbb website for door-to-door travel estimates...www.sbb.ch

you can put in the address of your employment and then the address of the apartment, choose a 'reasonable' time of day (people tend to start work maybe anything from 7:00-9:00 which to me as an Aussie seems 'early' ) - and it'll give you the connections, including walking, door to door!