Unfortunately (or not, depending on your POV), certain tenants' rights are very strongly protected in Switzerland. I would guess that most tenants here are on month-to-month arrangements and they're near-impossible to shift. I'm just suggesting that you take good legal advice before acting as you or I would based on our home country experience.

I have rented my apartment in 2008(contract made on my name), at that time my rent was based on interest rate of 3.5%.

In April my spouse was going to join me in Switzerland and share same apartment. I informed the same to my housing agency, so they suggested to change my contract to familienwohnung and include both of our names in contract. At that time they made new contract with same rent & same start date as 2008 but changed interest rate to 2.25% in contract. I didn't notice it & signed the contract as rent & date was same.

Now when I noticed the same I raised concern with them and asked to reduce the rent based on current interest rate i.e 2% they just offered reduction from 2.25% to 2%.

I need suggestion should I ask then again & tell then that rent need to be changed based on 3.5% to 2% or I have already signed new contact with 2.25% and i cannot do any thing now?

I do have both the contract copies, should i contact mieterverband for it? I am not a member currently... do you suggest to join mieterverband for above concern? I just don't wont to join if I already know that nothing can be done now... as apart from this issue I never had any issue with my housing agency.

Please suggest.

Regards,
Sagar.

Yes.

The annual fee is very inexpensive and they're really best placed to help you. Sorry to hear your story -- I think you have lost out on the chance of a significant rental reduction due to signing the new contract but I really don't know for sure. The Mieterverband should.

As suggested I will contact mieterverband, have anyone of you faced similar situation earlier?

It would be my guess that you will only get the very slight reduction.

I doubt the mieterverband will help you when you say that you signed the previous contract without reading it properly and can they please, now you've joined them after you signed it, negotiate with the landlord over this issue.

Not from personal experience, but from posts I've read on here, the mieterverband is pure arbitration. They will happily take the landlord's side if they've not done anything wrong. And unreasonable <> wrong. If I was in your situation I'd be annoyed I signed the new contract without understanding the interest rate thing (and until recently I didn't, so I would have been caught out too) and just paid it.

Hmm, so my agency didn’t say no, but they got the letter on October 10 so maybe it was too late. Although they say I was too early J I’ve been in my place since August 2010 and the rate is 3%. They said:

A la lecture de votre contrat, nous constatons que le prochaine échéance de votre bail a loyer est fixée au 1 avril 2014 avec un préavis de 3 mois. A vu de ce qui précède, votre demande nous semble prématurée et nous vous laissons le soin de la réitérer en temps utile.

I don’t want to make the mistake again and lose another three months reduction so can anyone advise on when I should send the letter again – many thanks!

Simple -- send the letter as soon as you know about the rate reduction (if there is another one). I suspect you're on an old-style contract that allows you to give notice on only three dates each year. You missed the last notice date so any changes take effect only from 1 April next year (the next notice date is apparently 31 December).

You should get a big reduction, though, if the contract rate was 3.0%

Yes but the agency is playing games and saying since it is too early they will not consider it and leave it up to LMG to tell them again in the right time.

Your agency are a piece of work

We alos just send or whenever we know and then get it at the next possible date.

In your case, depends if you want to play nice or hardball.

Nice: send it again via registered letter beg december so that you have the 3 months plus a bit.

Hardball: tell them you consider you have fullfilled your duty and expect them to do the same.



K

From 1st Feb my rent reduces by 100Fr per month, which is a 10% reduction (net of Nebenkosten). Cool! That's 1200 extra cash a year in my pocket.

Less the paltry 5% commission (ongoing) you owe me (or is it jot?) for the heads-up.

You're welcome.

It balances out what you owe me when you lost the "how far is the Bus 50 stop from Basel SBB" bet.

So we got our second reply finally and the rent will be reduced by CHF 124 as of 01.04.2014. In the absence of drastic changes in the real estate market I guess.

Nice! And the good news is that "drastic changes in the real estate market" would have absolutely no effect on your rent. That is contractually set and varies only when the reference interest rate is varied. So it's only the broader Swiss economy you have to worry about.

Oh, no, I missed the December date, which is probably what they hoped. Wasn't paying attention! Does anyone know when the next date is?

Look at your contract........End of June probably but there could be other 'notice' days

Thanks, the date in mycontract is 1 April with three months notice and I’m paying 3%. I wrote lasttime on October 10th and they said I was too early:
A la lecture de votre contrat, nous constatons que le prochaine échéancede votre bail a loyer est fixée au 1 avril 2014 avec un préavis de 3 mois. A vude ce qui précède, votre demande nous semble prématurée et nous vous laissonsle soin de la réitérer en temps utile.

I then missed the early December date that Kri kindly advised. Sorry ifI’m being dense, but I don’t understand the rules of this. Can anyone tellplease when is the right time to write again? I guess they were banking on memissing the next date, and predictably, I did!

Oops, should have checked that cut & paste

Sent a letter in January last month to my renting agency Wincasa and got a confirmation for reduction in rent effective May'2014.

yeah, 3 months waiting period before it comes into effect, but I don't mind a 4.5% reduction in rent as promised

free tip - follow-up with your renting agency/landlord if you haven't already done so

you can find sample letter here: http://www.mieterverband.ch/2637.0.html

"You may apply for a rent reduction when there is a significant change in the basis for calculating the rent, e.g. a cut in the reference interest rate."

The above note was in www.ch.ch. My question is how do I find out if this
applicable to me? Can I raise this with my Landlord in writing.

Any help will be appreciated.

Hello, this has been raised before on this thread.

Happy reading.