Giving notice on your flat correctly: deadlines, dates and replacement tenants

For flats the statutory notice period is three months (Art. 266c CO). Notice is given for a date customary in the locality or, where there is no local custom, for the end of a three-month lease period. The lease may provide a longer period or other dates; the lease then applies.

In many regions the dates are the end of March, June and September, elsewhere also the end of December; Geneva and Vaud often use different dates. Your lease is decisive, and it almost always lists the dates.

• In writing with a handwritten signature (Art. 266l CO). Email, SMS or WhatsApp are not enough.
• As a tenant you do not need the official form; only the landlord does.
• Send it by registered mail. The notice counts as delivered when the landlord collects it, at the latest on the seventh day after the delivery attempt. Allow for this collection period and send early.
• Family home: both spouses or registered partners must sign, even if only one of them is named in the lease (Art. 266m CO). If a signature is missing, the notice is void.
• Several tenants on one lease can only give notice together.

You can return the flat early at any time if you propose at least one acceptable replacement tenant (Art. 264 CO). Acceptable means solvent, willing to take over the lease on the same terms and on the desired date, and objectively reasonable for the landlord.

The landlord may vet the person, in practice for two to four weeks. If an acceptable candidate is rejected or the landlord does not answer, you are released from the rent from the proposed date. If you find nobody or the rejection is justified, you owe the rent until the next regular termination date.

• Propose several candidates, in writing and by registered mail, with a debt enforcement extract and proof of income.
• Give the landlord a deadline to respond.
• State that the person is willing to take over on the existing terms.

The landlord has to use the canton's official form, otherwise the notice is void. On request it must be justified. If the notice violates good faith, for instance because you asserted legitimate claims, you can contest it within 30 days at the conciliation authority (Art. 271, 271a and 273 CO).

Independently of that, you can ask within the same deadline for an extension of the lease if moving out would cause hardship for you or your family. For flats, up to four years are possible (Art. 272b CO). Arrears follow a different procedure: the landlord sets a 30-day deadline and may then terminate with 30 days' notice to the end of a month (Art. 257d CO).

• Termination date and notice period checked in the lease.
• All tenants and, for a family home, both partners have signed.
• The letter states the date, the address of the flat and the desired termination date.
• Sent by registered mail, receipt and copy kept.
• Handover arranged, in many places on the last day of the lease or the following working day by noon.