Step 2 · The weeks after
Two clocks are running at once, and most families watch the wrong one. The letter to the landlord cannot wait. Emptying the home can.
Updated on August 12th, 20268 minute read
The termination letter
The clearance itself
The pressure of the first weeks comes from the letting agent (Verwaltung / gérance) ringing, from a brother who lives far away and only has this weekend, or from the feeling that something must be done. It rarely comes from the law. Apart from the termination letter, nothing obliges you to empty the home in the days that follow. Take your time.
There is even a serious legal reason to wait. You have three months from the moment you learn of the death to accept or renounce the inheritance. Helping yourself to the deceased's belongings can count as tacit acceptance, and that makes you liable for the debts out of your own assets. While the financial picture is unclear, take nothing and sell nothing.
The distinction that matters
Terminating the lease, paying the rent and insuring the home are part of administering the estate: they protect it and do not count as acceptance. Taking the furniture away, selling the car or emptying the wardrobes is another matter. If you suspect debts, ask for the public inventory within the first month, before you touch anything.
One last point, more human than legal. Plenty of families regret having sorted too fast, under the pressure of the first days, and having thrown out things they would have wanted to keep. Nobody regrets having waited three weeks.
First fact to take in: a death does not end the lease. The contract passes automatically to the heirs, who become the tenants and are jointly and severally liable for the rent until the tenancy actually ends. Every month of hesitation is a month of rent paid.
In return, the law grants one special right. Article 266i of the Code of Obligations provides that on the death of the tenant "his heirs may terminate the contract by giving the legally prescribed notice expiring on the next admissible termination date": three months for a home, six months for commercial premises. That right is worth a lot, because it applies even where the lease was for a fixed term or set a longer contractual notice period. A lease with two years still to run can be brought to an end in three months.
And here is the trap, the one that costs the most. This extraordinary right has to be used at the first admissible termination date. Let that moment pass and it is gone, and you fall back on the ordinary terms of the contract.
An example. The dates below are the customary ones in the canton of Vaud, so check the ones that apply where the home is.
The local termination dates are 1 April, 1 July and 1 October.
Three months' notice can no longer be given for that date.
Provided the letter reaches the landlord before the end of March.
The same letter, posted in May, arrives after the window has closed. The extraordinary right is lost and the lease continues on the terms of the contract.
Local termination dates change from canton to canton and sometimes from one municipality to the next. Check yours with the letting agent or with the tenants' association in your canton (Mieterverband / ASLOCA) before you date the letter: it costs nothing and it takes one phone call.
Three points come up again and again:
In practice, many letting agents give the heirs a short breathing space, around two weeks, when the death is learned of late or an heir lives abroad. You have to ask for it. It is rarely offered.
Working in this order heads off most of the trouble, and it comes down to four passes through the home.
Before anything else, and if you can, alone or with one other person. Folders, unopened post, the desk drawer, the shoebox in the wardrobe. Take it all away without sorting on site.
Jewellery, watches, cash, securities, safe-deposit keys. Put them somewhere safe and make a list with photographs, above all when there are several heirs.
Photographs, letters, notebooks, keepsakes. This is the hardest pass emotionally: do it as a family, with no schedule, and never on the same day as the rest.
Furniture, crockery, appliances, clothes. Here, and only here, a house clearance firm earns its money.
One simple rule between heirs: nothing leaves the home until everyone has seen what is in it. A photograph of each room, taken on the first day and sent to the family group, defuses more arguments than any later discussion.
Clearance firms all tell the same story: essential documents found in a pile of old newspapers, banknotes slipped between the pages of a book. Hence this list to tick off, and to take with you on the first day.
0 of 10
Set aside before any clearance
A firm sorts, empties, takes everything away for disposal and hands the place back in the state the handover inspection (Wohnungsabgabe / état des lieux) requires. Prices are worked out by volume or as a package per home.
| Item | CHF |
|---|---|
| Studio or two-room flat (usual package, full clearance and a basic clean) | 800 to 2,000 |
| Three to four rooms (the most common case after a death) | 1,500 to 3,500 |
| Five rooms or a house (with cellar, attic and garage) | 3,000 to 7,000 |
| Volume rate (for partial clearances) | 40 to 90 per m³ |
| Cleaning with a handover guarantee (often required by the letting agent) | 600 to 2,000 |
| Temporary storage (while the decision to keep or not is still open) | 80 to 300 per month |
Three habits are worth keeping before you sign. Ask the firm to come and see the home instead of quoting over the phone. Insist on a written quote that says whether disposal and recycling-centre fees are included. And be wary of the free clearance offer: it assumes the firm will pay itself out of what it resells, and it sometimes leaves the rest where it stands.
Describe the home in a few lines — municipality, number of rooms, cellar or attic — and we pass your request to a clearance firm working in your area, which will get back to you to arrange a visit. No obligation.
Some requests are forwarded to Funere's commercial partners. We may be remunerated when an order goes ahead, which never changes the price you pay. Always compare several offers before committing.
Whatever the first quote says, ask for a second one. On this market the gap between two firms is wide.
Once the family has been through it, there is almost always far more left than anyone expected. Four destinations, in this order of preference.
Give away
Sell
Dispose of
Store
Watch the things that look worthless: old cameras, vinyl records, sewing machines, trade tools, stamp albums. A photograph sent to a second-hand dealer before you load the trailer takes five minutes.
Adapt it, print it, have every heir sign it and send it by registered post, with a copy of the death certificate enclosed. The letting agent may also ask for the certificate of inheritance.
Template letter terminating the lease, Article 266i CO
First name, surname of the heir
Address, postcode, town
Sent by registered post
Name of the letting agent or landlord
Address, postcode, town
Place, date
Termination of the lease following the death of first name, surname of the deceased, address of the home, floor
Dear Sir or Madam,
We are writing to inform you that first name, surname died on date in place. A copy of the death certificate is enclosed.
As the heirs, and in accordance with Article 266i of the Code of Obligations, we hereby terminate the lease named above by giving the legally prescribed notice expiring on the next admissible termination date, namely date of the next admissible termination date.
Please acknowledge receipt of this letter and propose a date for the handover inspection. You can reach us at the address and telephone number given above.
Yours faithfully,
Signature of each heir
First name and surname in block capitals
First name and surname in block capitals
Enclosure: copy of the death certificate
Do not replace the termination date with a period of three months from posting: the notice has to name one precise admissible termination date. If in doubt, a call to the letting agent or to the tenants' association in your canton settles it.
Legal framework: Code of Obligations, articles 266c, 266d, 266i and 264 on terminating the lease, Swiss Civil Code, articles 560 and 571 on the transfer and the acceptance of the estate. Local termination dates, and the rules and fees of the recycling centres, are set by the cantons and the municipalities. The prices are orders of magnitude collected in French-speaking Switzerland. This page is general practical information and does not replace individual legal advice.