I've just recieved my tenancy agreement and I've been translating it through babelfish, but there appears to be a few words that it doesn't understand: Hypothekarzinssatz; Treppen-(and various endings: Treppenlaufes; Treppenhausreinigung); solidarisch (it comes up as 'solidarily', which I'm fairly sure isn't a word in Engligh...); Meteorwasser (meteor shower? They can get one just for the flat?); Kehrichtabfuhr (something to with recylcing?).
Also some other bits: when 'punkte 105.40' is mentioned in conjunction with Landesindex, but what does it mean?
Cheers!

Tony

All the tenancy agreements I hav had in Switzerland have been in Standard form for the respective canton you will be living in. Nevertheless, you should have it checked other than through babelfish. I would have thought your new employer would happily read through it for you. To tide you over in your deciphering:

Zinssatz = mortgage rate
Treppen = stairway
Meteorwasser = flood water
Kehrichtabfuhr = rubbish collection/disposal
Landesindex = I think an inflation index (Swiss rents can be indexed upwards in some situations)

Thanks, Danny - that's been quite a help. I thought I'd do a rough translation at the moment just to see if there's any clauses that were out of the ordinary, but it all looks pretty standard. I'll see if the secretary can go through a bit better than I can.
Just can't wait to really get into learning German, though.

Typically you need to be aware that:

- notice can normally only be given at quarter-ends and often not 31 December
- however, if you present a suitable person to take over the lease yourself you can be released early
- in German Switzerland you should get the property immaculately clean and will be expected to return it as such, with a pretty narrow definition of "wear and tear", most people get this cleaning done professionally and it can cost cCHF2000 for a large appartment
- for appartments, you might also want to check the "house rules" or Reglement as this can be quite restrictive particularly if you have a shared laundry or want to put up a Sky dish
- mostly the rent excludes the service charges (communal areas, share of heating, water etc) and you need to make sure it is clear what is and isnt covered

I get the impression most shenanigans happen around the exit cleaning and these service charges (eg a Swiss politician recently got in trouble for presenting a 9000chf bill to her tenant in respect of undercharged service costs covering a seven year period!).

Daniel