¹ Debt­ors be­come jointly and sev­er­ally li­able for a debt by stat­ing that each of them wishes to be in­di­vidu­ally li­able for per­form­ance of the en­tire ob­lig­a­tion.

² Without such a state­ment of in­tent, debt­ors are joint and sev­er­ally li­able only in the cases spe­cified by law.

¹ A cred­it­or may at his dis­cre­tion re­quest par­tial per­form­ance of the ob­lig­a­tion from each joint and sev­er­al debt­or or else full per­form­ance from any one of them.

² All the debt­ors re­main un­der the ob­lig­a­tion un­til the en­tire claim has been re­deemed.

¹ A joint and sev­er­al debt­or may raise against the cred­it­or only those ob­jec­tions that are based either on his per­son­al re­la­tion­ship with the cred­it­or or on the nature of or col­lect­ive reas­on for the joint and sev­er­al ob­lig­a­tion.

² Each joint and sev­er­al debt­or is li­able to the oth­ers if he fails to raise the ob­jec­tions which all of them are en­titled to raise.

Un­less oth­er­wise provided, a joint and sev­er­al debt­or must not take any ac­tion which might im­pair the po­s­i­tion of his fel­lows.

¹ Where one joint and sev­er­al debt­or sat­is­fies the cred­it­or by pay­ment or set-off, the oth­ers are dis­charged to that ex­tent.

² Where one joint and sev­er­al debt­or is re­leased from li­ab­il­ity without sat­is­fac­tion of the cred­it­or, such re­lease does not be­ne­fit the oth­ers save to the ex­tent jus­ti­fied by the cir­cum­stances or the nature of the ob­lig­a­tion.

¹ Un­less the leg­al re­la­tion­ship between the joint and sev­er­al debt­ors in­dic­ates oth­er­wise, each of them as­sumes an equal share of the pay­ment made to the cred­it­or.

² A joint and sev­er­al debt­or who pays more than his fair share has re­course against the oth­ers for the ex­cess.

³ Amounts that can­not be re­covered from one joint and sev­er­al debt­or must be borne in equal shares by the oth­ers.

¹ A joint and sev­er­al debt­or with right of re­course against his fel­low debt­ors is sub­rog­ated to the rights of the cred­it­or to the ex­tent the lat­ter has been sat­is­fied.

² The cred­it­or is li­able if he fa­vours the leg­al po­s­i­tion of one joint and sev­er­al debt­or to the det­ri­ment of the oth­ers.

¹ Mul­tiple cred­it­ors be­come joint and sev­er­al cred­it­ors where the debt­or states that he wishes to grant each of them the right to re­ceive full per­form­ance of the debt and in the cases pre­scribed by law.

² Per­form­ance made to one joint and sev­er­al cred­it­or dis­charges the debt­or as against all of them.

³ The debt­or may choose which joint and sev­er­al cred­it­or he makes the pay­ment to, provided none of them has ini­ti­ated leg­al pro­ceed­ings against him.

¹ A con­tract is con­di­tion­al if its bind­ing nature is made de­pend­ent on the oc­cur­rence of an event that is not cer­tain to hap­pen.

² The con­tract takes ef­fect as soon as this con­di­tion pre­ced­ent oc­curs, un­less the parties clearly in­ten­ded oth­er­wise.

¹ Un­til such time as the con­di­tion pre­ced­ent oc­curs, the con­di­tion­al ob­lig­or must re­frain from any act which might pre­vent the due per­form­ance of his ob­lig­a­tion.

² A con­di­tion­al ob­li­gee whose rights are jeop­ard­ised is en­titled to ap­ply for the same pro­tect­ive meas­ures as if his claim were un­con­di­tion­al.

³ On ful­fil­ment of the con­di­tion pre­ced­ent, dis­pos­i­tions made be­fore it oc­curred are void to the ex­tent that they im­pair the ef­fect of the con­di­tion pre­ced­ent.

¹ A cred­it­or in­to whose pos­ses­sion a prom­ised ob­ject has been de­livered be­fore the con­di­tion pre­ced­ent oc­curred may, on ful­fil­ment of the con­di­tion pre­ced­ent, keep any be­ne­fits ob­tained from it in the in­ter­im.

² If the con­di­tion pre­ced­ent fails to oc­cur, he is ob­liged to re­turn such be­ne­fits.

¹ A con­tract whose ter­min­a­tion is made de­pend­ent on the oc­cur­rence of an event that is not cer­tain to hap­pen lapses as soon as that con­di­tion is ful­filled.

² As a rule, there is no ret­ro­act­ive ef­fect.

If the con­di­tion con­sists of an act by one of the parties and that act need not be car­ried out in per­son, it may also be car­ried out by the party’s heirs.

A con­di­tion is deemed ful­filled where one of the parties has pre­ven­ted its ful­fil­ment by act­ing in bad faith.

Where a con­di­tion is at­tached with the in­ten­tion of en­cour­aging an un­law­ful or im­mor­al act or omis­sion, the con­di­tion­al claim is void.

¹ Earn­est money paid on en­ter­ing in­to a con­tract is deemed a mark of the party’s in­ten­tion to hon­our the con­tract rather than a for­feit.

² Un­less oth­er­wise stip­u­lated by agree­ment or loc­al cus­tom, the earn­est money is re­tained by the re­cip­i­ent without be­ing de­duc­ted from his claim.

³ Where a sum of for­feit money has been agreed, the party that paid the sum may with­draw from the con­tract by re­lin­quish­ing it and the party that re­ceived it by re­turn­ing twice the amount.

¹ Where a pen­alty is prom­ised for non-per­form­ance or de­fect­ive per­form­ance of a con­tract, un­less oth­er­wise agreed, the cred­it­or may only com­pel per­form­ance or claim the pen­alty.

² Where the pen­alty is prom­ised for fail­ure to com­ply with the stip­u­lated time or place of per­form­ance, the cred­it­or may claim the pen­alty in ad­di­tion to per­form­ance provided he has not ex­pressly waived such right or ac­cep­ted per­form­ance without re­ser­va­tion.

³ The fore­go­ing does not ap­ply if the debt­or can prove that he has the right to with­draw from the con­tract by pay­ing the pen­alty.

¹ The pen­alty is pay­able even if the cred­it­or has not suffered any dam­age.

² Where the dam­age suffered ex­ceeds the pen­alty amount, the cred­it­or may claim fur­ther com­pens­a­tion only if he can prove that the debt­or was at fault.

¹ Any agree­ment that part pay­ments are for­feited to the cred­it­or in the event the con­tract is ter­min­ated shall be de­term­ined in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing con­trac­tu­al pen­al­ties.

² ...⁶⁵

¹ The parties are free to de­term­ine the amount of the con­trac­tu­al pen­alty.

² The pen­alty may not be claimed where its pur­pose is to re­in­force an un­law­ful or im­mor­al un­der­tak­ing or, un­less oth­er­wise agreed, where per­form­ance has been pre­ven­ted by cir­cum­stances bey­ond the debt­or’s con­trol.

³ At its dis­cre­tion, the court may re­duce pen­al­ties that it con­siders ex­cess­ive.

¹ A cred­it­or may as­sign a claim to which he is en­titled to a third party without the debt­or’s con­sent un­less the as­sign­ment is for­bid­den by law or con­tract or pre­ven­ted by the nature of the leg­al re­la­tion­ship.

² The debt­or may not ob­ject to the as­sign­ment on the grounds that it was ex­cluded by agree­ment against any third party who ac­quires the claim in re­li­ance on a writ­ten ac­know­ledge­ment of debt in which there is no men­tion of any pro­hib­i­tion of as­sign­ment.

¹ An as­sign­ment is val­id only if done in writ­ing.

² No par­tic­u­lar form is re­quired for an un­der­tak­ing to enter in­to an as­sign­ment agree­ment.

Where leg­al pro­vi­sions or a court judg­ment re­quire a claim to be as­signed to an­oth­er per­son, the as­sign­ment is ef­fect­ive to­wards third parties without need for any par­tic­u­lar form or even for a state­ment of in­tent by the former cred­it­or.

Where, be­fore the as­sign­ment has been brought to his at­ten­tion by the as­signor or the as­sign­ee, the debt­or makes pay­ment in good faith to his former cred­it­or or, in the case of mul­tiple as­sign­ments, to a sub­sequent as­sign­ee who ac­quired the claim, he is val­idly re­leased from his ob­lig­a­tion.

¹ In the event of dis­pute as to en­ti­tle­ment, the debt­or may re­fuse pay­ment and dis­charge his ob­lig­a­tion by de­pos­it­ing the pay­ment with the court.

² He makes pay­ment at his own risk if he does so with know­ledge of the dis­pute.

³ Where leg­al ac­tion is pending and the debt is due, each party may re­quire the debt­or to de­pos­it the pay­ment with the court.

¹ Any ob­jec­tion that could have been made to the as­signor’s claim may also be made to the as­sign­ee if it ap­plied at the time the debt­or first learned of the as­sign­ment.

² If the debt­or held a coun­ter­vail­ing claim that was not yet due at that time, he may non­ethe­less set it off against the as­signed claim provided it did not fall due any later than the as­signed claim.

¹ The as­sign­ment of a claim in­cludes all pref­er­en­tial and ac­cess­ory rights ex­cept those that are in­sep­ar­able from the per­son of the as­signor.

² The as­signor is bound to sur­render to the as­sign­ee the leg­al doc­u­ment per­tain­ing to the debt to­geth­er with all avail­able evid­ence there­of and to fur­nish him with all in­form­a­tion ne­ces­sary to as­sert the claim.

³ Ar­rears of in­terest are pre­sumed as­signed with the main debt.

¹ Where as­sign­ment is made for valu­able con­sid­er­a­tion, the as­signor war­rants that the claim ex­ists at the time of as­sign­ment.

² However, he does not war­rant that the debt­or is solvent un­less he has un­der­taken to do so.

³ Where there is no valu­able con­sid­er­a­tion for the as­sign­ment, the as­signor does not even war­rant that the claim ex­ists.

Where a cred­it­or has as­signed his claim in pay­ment without fix­ing the amount at which the claim should be cred­ited, the as­sign­ee need cred­it only the amount that he ac­tu­ally re­ceives from the debt­or or would have been able to ob­tain by ex­er­cising all due di­li­gence.

¹ The as­signor is li­able un­der war­ranty only for the valu­able con­sid­er­a­tion re­ceived plus in­terest and in ad­di­tion for the costs of the as­sign­ment and of any un­suc­cess­ful pro­ceed­ings against the debt­or.

² Where a claim is as­signed by op­er­a­tion of law, the pre­vi­ous cred­it­or war­rants neither the ex­ist­ence of the claim nor the solvency of the debt­or.

Where the law en­vis­ages spe­cial pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing the as­sign­ment of claims, these are un­af­fected.

¹ A per­son who prom­ises to an­swer for the debt of an­oth­er as­sumes an ob­lig­a­tion to re­lease the debt­or from his ob­lig­a­tion either by sat­is­fy­ing the cred­it­or or by tak­ing the debt­or’s place with the con­sent of the cred­it­or.

² The debt­or may not com­pel per­form­ance of the ob­lig­a­tion by the party as­sum­ing the debt un­til the debt­or has dis­charged his ob­lig­a­tions un­der the debt as­sump­tion con­tract.

³ If the pre­vi­ous debt­or is not re­leased from his debt, he may re­quest that the new debt­or fur­nish se­cur­ity.

¹ The ac­ces­sion of the debt ac­quirer to the debt re­la­tion­ship in lieu of and with the re­lease of the pre­vi­ous debt­or is ef­fected by means of a con­tract between the debt ac­quirer and the cred­it­or.

² An of­fer to enter in­to the con­tract may con­sist of no­ti­fic­a­tion of the cred­it­or that the debt is to be as­sumed. No­ti­fic­a­tion must be made either by the debt ac­quirer or, on his au­thor­ity, by the pre­vi­ous debt­or.

³ The cred­it­or’s ac­cept­ance may be ex­press or im­plied by the cir­cum­stances and is pre­sumed once the cred­it­or un­re­servedly takes re­ceipt of a pay­ment from the debt ac­quirer or con­sents to some oth­er act per­formed by him in the ca­pa­city of debt­or.

¹ The cred­it­or may de­clare his ac­cept­ance at any time, but the debt ac­quirer and the former debt­or may set the cred­it­or a time lim­it for ac­cept­ance and where this ex­pires without com­mu­nic­a­tion from the cred­it­or, he is deemed to have re­fused the of­fer.

² If the cred­it­or agrees some oth­er debt as­sump­tion ar­range­ment be­fore the of­fer has been ac­cep­ted and the new pro­spect­ive debt ac­quirer has also made an of­fer to the cred­it­or, the party that made the pre­vi­ous of­fer is no longer bound thereby.

¹ The rights that are ac­cess­ory to the debt re­main un­af­fected by the change of debt­or save to the ex­tent that they are in­sep­ar­able from the per­son of the pre­vi­ous debt­or.

² However, pledges and sureties provided by third parties re­main in place in fa­vour of the cred­it­or only provided the pledgor or surety has con­sen­ted to the as­sump­tion of the debt.

¹ Any de­fences arising from the debt re­la­tion­ship are avail­able to the new debt­or as they were to the former.

² The new debt­or may not in­voke the de­fences per­son­ally avail­able to the old debt­or against the cred­it­or, un­less oth­er­wise provided in the con­tract with the cred­it­or.

³ Where the debt ac­quirer has de­fences arising against the debt­or from the leg­al re­la­tion­ship un­der­ly­ing the as­sump­tion of debt, these may not be in­voked against the cred­it­or.

¹ In the event of the fail­ure of the debt as­sump­tion con­tract, the pre­vi­ous debt­or’s ob­lig­a­tion is re­vived with all ac­cess­ory rights, sub­ject to the rights of bona fide third parties.

² The cred­it­or may also claim dam­ages from the would-be debt ac­quirer for any dam­age suffered as a res­ult of the loss of se­cur­ity pre­vi­ously ob­tained or for sim­il­ar reas­ons, un­less the would-be debt ac­quirer can prove that he was in no way to blame for the fail­ure of the debt as­sump­tion con­tract or the dam­age caused to the cred­it­or.

¹ A per­son to whom as­sets or a busi­ness with as­sets and li­ab­il­it­ies are as­signed auto­mat­ic­ally be­comes li­able to the cred­it­ors of the debts en­cum­ber­ing such as­sets or busi­ness on no­ti­fic­a­tion of the as­sign­ment to the cred­it­ors by him or by pub­lic­a­tion in of­fi­cial journ­als.

² However, the pre­vi­ous debt­or re­mains jointly and sev­er­ally li­able with the new debt­or for three years, com­men­cing on the date of no­ti­fic­a­tion or pub­lic­a­tion in the case of claims already due and on the ma­tur­ity date in the case of claims fall­ing due sub­sequently.⁶⁶

³ In oth­er re­spects, an as­sump­tion of debt of this kind has the same ef­fect as the as­sump­tion of an in­di­vidu­al debt.

⁴ The takeover by as­sign­ment of as­sets or busi­nesses of com­mer­cial en­ter­prises, co­oper­at­ives, as­so­ci­ations, found­a­tions or sole pro­pri­et­or­ships re­gistered in the com­mer­cial re­gister is gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions of the Mer­gers Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 2003⁶⁷.⁶⁸

The spe­cial pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing as­sump­tion of debt when di­vid­ing es­tates or dis­pos­ing of pledged im­mov­able prop­erty are un­af­fected.

¹ A con­tract of sale is a con­tract whereby the seller un­der­takes to de­liv­er the item sold and trans­fer own­er­ship of it to the buy­er in re­turn for the sale price, which the buy­er un­der­takes to pay to the seller.

² Un­less oth­er­wise provided by agree­ment or cus­tom, the seller and the buy­er are ob­liged to dis­charge their ob­lig­a­tions sim­ul­tan­eously quid pro quo.

³ The price is deemed suf­fi­ciently de­term­ined where it can be de­term­ined from the cir­cum­stances.

¹ The be­ne­fit and risk of the ob­ject pass to the buy­er on con­clu­sion of the con­tract, ex­cept where oth­er­wise agreed or dic­tated by spe­cial cir­cum­stance.

² Where the ob­ject sold is defined only in gen­er­ic terms, the seller must se­lect the par­tic­u­lar item to be de­livered and, if it is to be shipped, must hand it over for dis­patch.

³ In a con­tract sub­ject to a con­di­tion pre­ced­ent, be­ne­fit and risk of the ob­ject do not pass to the buy­er un­til the con­di­tion has been ful­filled.

Can­ton­al law may lim­it or ex­clude the right to bring claims in con­nec­tion with re­tail sales of al­co­hol­ic bever­ages, in­clud­ing hotel bills.

¹ Any sale in which the ob­ject is not land, prop­erty or a right in rem entered in the land re­gister is a chat­tel sale.

² Where con­stitu­ent parts of land, such as crops, ar­chi­tec­tur­al sal­vage ma­ter­i­als or quarry products, are sep­ar­ated there­from for trans­fer to the ac­quirer, their sale con­sti­tutes a chat­tel sale.

Un­less oth­er­wise provided by agree­ment or cus­tom, the seller bears the costs of trans­fer and in par­tic­u­lar those of meas­ur­ing and weigh­ing, while the buy­er bears those of doc­u­ment­a­tion and re­ceipt.

¹ Un­less oth­er­wise provided by agree­ment or cus­tom, if the ob­ject sold must be trans­por­ted to a place oth­er than the place of per­form­ance, the buy­er bears the costs of such trans­port.

² The seller is pre­sumed to have borne the trans­port costs where free de­liv­ery has been agreed.

³ Where de­liv­ery free of ship­ping costs and du­ties has been agreed, the seller is deemed to have as­sumed the ex­port, trans­it and im­port du­ties pay­able dur­ing trans­port but not the con­sumer tax levied on re­ceipt of the ob­ject.

¹ Where in com­mer­cial trans­ac­tions the con­tract spe­cifies a time lim­it for de­liv­ery and the seller is in de­fault, the pre­sump­tion is that the buy­er will fore­go de­liv­ery and claim dam­ages for non-per­form­ance.

² However, if the buy­er prefers to de­mand de­liv­ery, he must in­form the seller without delay on ex­piry of the time lim­it.

¹ A seller who fails to dis­charge his con­trac­tu­al ob­lig­a­tion is li­able for the res­ult­ant dam­age to the buy­er.

² The buy­er in a com­mer­cial trans­ac­tion is en­titled to com­pens­a­tion of the dif­fer­ence between the sale price and the price he has paid in good faith to re­place the ob­ject that was not de­livered to him.

³ In the case of goods with a mar­ket or stock ex­change price, the buy­er need not buy the re­place­ment ob­ject but is en­titled to claim as dam­ages the dif­fer­ence between the con­trac­tu­al sale price and the mar­ket price at the time of per­form­ance.

¹ The seller is ob­liged to trans­fer the pur­chased goods to the buy­er free from any rights en­force­able by third parties against the buy­er that already ex­ist at the time the con­tract is con­cluded.

² Where on con­clu­sion of the con­tract the buy­er was aware of the ex­ist­ence of such rights, the seller is not bound un­less by any ex­press war­ranty giv­en.

³ Any agree­ment to ex­clude or lim­it the war­ranty ob­lig­a­tion is void if the seller has in­ten­tion­ally omit­ted to men­tion the right of a third party.

¹ The re­quire­ments for and ef­fects of the third-party no­tice are gov­erned by the CPC⁷¹.

² In the event of fail­ure to serve the third-party no­tice for reas­ons not at­trib­ut­able to the seller, he is re­leased from his war­ranty ob­lig­a­tion to the ex­tent that he can prove that the out­come would have been more fa­vour­able had the third-party no­tice been served promptly.

¹ The seller re­mains sub­ject to the war­ranty ob­lig­a­tion even if the buy­er has in good faith ac­know­ledged the right of a third party without wait­ing for a court de­cision or if he has agreed to sub­mit to ar­bit­ra­tion, provided that the seller was warned of the ar­bit­ra­tion pro­ceed­ings in good time but de­clined an in­vit­a­tion to en­gage therein.

² The same ap­plies if the buy­er proves that he was com­pelled to sur­render the ob­ject.

¹ In the case of full dis­pos­ses­sion, the con­tract of sale is deemed ter­min­ated and the buy­er has the right to claim:

1.

resti­tu­tion of the price paid, with in­terest, less the value of any fruits the buy­er has ob­tained or neg­lected to ob­tain from the ob­ject and oth­er be­ne­fits de­rived there­from;

2.

re­im­burse­ment of his ex­pendit­ures on the ob­ject, to the ex­tent this can­not be ob­tained from the third party with the su­per­i­or right;

3.

re­im­burse­ment of all ju­di­cial and ex­tra-ju­di­cial costs arising from the pro­ceed­ings, apart from those he would have avoided by serving third-party no­tice on the seller;

4.

com­pens­a­tion for all oth­er dam­age dir­ectly caused by the dis­pos­ses­sion.

² The seller is also ob­liged to make good any fur­ther loss suffered by the buy­er un­less the seller can prove that he is not at fault.

¹ Where the buy­er is dis­pos­sessed of only part of the pur­chased ob­ject or it is en­cumbered with a charge in rem for which the seller is guar­ant­or, the buy­er may not seek ter­min­a­tion of the con­tract of sale but may only claim dam­ages for be­ing thus dis­pos­sessed.

² However, where in the cir­cum­stances there is cause to pre­sume that he would not have entered in­to the con­tract if he had fore­seen such a par­tial dis­pos­ses­sion, he has the right to re­quest its ter­min­a­tion.

³ In this case, he must re­turn to the seller that part of the item of which he has not been dis­pos­sessed to­geth­er with the be­ne­fits he ob­tained from it in the in­ter­im.

In the case of ob­jects of cul­tur­al her­it­age with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 2 para­graph 1 of the Cul­tur­al Prop­erty Trans­fer Act of 20 June 2003⁷³, ac­tions for breach of war­ranty of title pre­scribe one year after the buy­er dis­covered the de­fect of title but in any event 30 years after the con­tract was con­cluded.

¹The seller is li­able to the buy­er for any breach of war­ranty of qual­ity and for any de­fects that would ma­ter­i­ally or leg­ally neg­ate or sub­stan­tially re­duce the value of the ob­ject or its fit­ness for the des­ig­nated pur­pose.

² He is li­able even if he was not aware of the de­fects.

There is no war­ranty ob­lig­a­tion in sales of live­stock (horses, don­keys, mules, cattle, sheep, goats or pigs) un­less the seller has giv­en ex­press war­ranty in writ­ing to the buy­er or has in­ten­tion­ally misled the buy­er.

Any agree­ment to ex­clude or lim­it the war­ranty ob­lig­a­tion is void if the seller has fraud­u­lently con­cealed the fail­ure to com­ply with war­ranty from the buy­er.

¹ The seller is not li­able for de­fects known to the buy­er at the time of pur­chase.

² He is not li­able for de­fects that any nor­mally at­tent­ive buy­er should have dis­covered un­less he as­sured the buy­er that they do not ex­ist.

¹ The buy­er must in­spect the con­di­tion of the pur­chased ob­ject as soon as feas­ible in the nor­mal course of busi­ness and, if he dis­cov­ers de­fects for which the seller is li­able un­der war­ranty, must no­ti­fy him without delay.

² Should he fail to do so, the pur­chased ob­ject is deemed ac­cep­ted ex­cept in the case of de­fects that would not be re­vealed by the cus­tom­ary in­spec­tion.

³ Where such de­fects come to light sub­sequently, the seller must be no­ti­fied im­me­di­ately, fail­ing which the ob­ject will be deemed ac­cep­ted even in re­spect of such de­fects.

¹ Where in a sale of live­stock a writ­ten as­sur­ance in­cludes no time lim­it and does not war­rant that an an­im­al is preg­nant, the seller is not li­able to the buy­er un­less a de­fect is dis­covered and no­ti­fied with­in nine days of de­liv­ery or of the no­tice of de­fault in tak­ing de­liv­ery and an ap­plic­a­tion is made to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity with­in the same time lim­it to have the an­im­al ex­amined by ex­perts.

² The court eval­u­ates the ex­perts’ re­port at its dis­cre­tion.

³ In oth­er re­spects the pro­ced­ure is gov­erned by reg­u­la­tions en­acted by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

Where the seller has wil­fully misled the buy­er, li­ab­il­ity for breach of war­ranty is not lim­ited by any fail­ure on the buy­er’s part to give prompt no­tice of de­fects.

¹ A buy­er who com­plains that an ob­ject sent from an­oth­er place is de­fect­ive is ob­liged to place it in tem­por­ary stor­age, provided the seller has no rep­res­ent­at­ive in the place in which it was re­ceived, and can­not simply re­turn it to the seller.

² The buy­er is ob­liged to have the con­di­tion of the ob­ject duly and promptly wit­nessed, fail­ing which he will bear the bur­den of prov­ing that the al­leged de­fects already ex­is­ted when he took re­ceipt of the ob­ject.

³ Where there is a risk that the ob­ject will rap­idly de­teri­or­ate, the buy­er has the right and, should the in­terests of the seller so re­quire, the ob­lig­a­tion to ar­range its sale with the as­sist­ance of the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity of the place where the ob­ject is loc­ated, but must no­ti­fy the seller of such sale as soon as pos­sible to avoid ren­der­ing him­self li­able in dam­ages.

¹ In claims for breach of war­ranty of qual­ity and fit­ness, the buy­er may sue either to res­cind the con­tract of sale for breach of war­ranty or to have the sale price re­duced by way of com­pens­a­tion for the de­crease in the ob­ject’s value.

² Even where the buy­er has brought ac­tion for res­cis­sion the court is free to or­der a re­duc­tion in the price of the ob­ject if it does not con­sider res­cis­sion jus­ti­fied by the cir­cum­stances.

³ If the de­crease in the ob­ject’s value is equal to the sale price, the buy­er may only sue for res­cis­sion.

¹ Where the con­tract of sale is for de­liv­ery of a spe­cified quant­ity of fun­gibles, the buy­er may choose to bring ac­tion either for res­cis­sion or for a re­duc­tion in the sale price or to re­quest oth­er ac­cept­able goods of the same kind.

² Where the pur­chased ob­jects have not been sent from an­oth­er place, the seller may dis­charge his ob­lig­a­tion to the buy­er by im­me­di­ately de­liv­er­ing ac­cept­able items of the same kind and mak­ing good any dam­age the buy­er has suffered.

¹ Ac­tion for res­cis­sion of the con­tract of sale may be brought if the ob­ject has been des­troyed as a res­ult of its de­fects or by ac­ci­dent.

² In such cases the buy­er must re­turn only that which re­mains of the ob­ject.

³ If the ob­ject is des­troyed through the fault of the buy­er or has been sold on or trans­formed by him, his only claim is for com­pens­a­tion for the de­crease in value.

¹ In the event of res­cis­sion of the con­tract of sale the buy­er must re­turn the ob­ject to the seller to­geth­er with any be­ne­fits de­rived from it in the in­ter­im.

² The seller must re­im­burse to the buy­er the sale price paid to­geth­er with in­terest and, in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing full dis­pos­ses­sion, com­pens­a­tion for lit­ig­a­tion costs, ex­penses and the dam­age in­curred by the buy­er as a res­ult of the de­liv­ery of de­fect­ive goods.

³ The seller is ob­liged to com­pensate the buy­er for any fur­ther dam­age un­less he can prove that no fault is at­trib­ut­able to him.

¹ Where the sale in­volves a batch or set of ob­jects of which only some are de­fect­ive, ac­tion for res­cis­sion may be brought only in re­spect of the de­fect­ive items.

² However, where the de­fect­ive items can­not be sep­ar­ated from the un­flawed items without sub­stan­tial pre­ju­dice to the buy­er or the seller, res­cis­sion of the con­tract of sale must ex­tend to the en­tire batch or set.

³ Res­cis­sion in re­spect of the main sale ob­ject ne­ces­sar­ily in­volves res­cis­sion in re­spect of all ac­cess­ory ob­jects even if they are priced sep­ar­ately, where­as res­cis­sion in re­spect of ac­cess­ory ob­jects does not ex­tend to the main ob­ject.

¹ An ac­tion for breach of war­ranty of qual­ity and fit­ness pre­scribes two years after de­liv­ery of the ob­ject to the buy­er, even if he does not dis­cov­er the de­fects un­til later, un­less the seller has as­sumed li­ab­il­ity un­der war­ranty for a longer peri­od.

² The peri­od amounts to five years where de­fects in an ob­ject that has been in­cor­por­ated in an im­mov­able work in a man­ner con­sist­ent with its nature and pur­pose have caused the work to be de­fect­ive.

³ In the case of cul­tur­al prop­erty with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 2 para­graph 1 of the Cul­tur­al Prop­erty Trans­fer Act of 20 June 2003⁷⁵, ac­tions for breach of war­ranty of qual­ity and fit­ness pre­scribe one year after the buy­er dis­covered the de­fect but in any event 30 years after the con­tract was con­cluded.

⁴ An agree­ment to re­duce the pre­script­ive peri­od is null and void if:

a.

the pre­script­ive peri­od is re­duced to less than two years, or less than one year in the case of second-hand goods;

b.

the ob­ject is in­ten­ded to be used by the buy­er or his or her fam­ily; and

c.

the seller is act­ing in the course of his or her pro­fes­sion­al or com­mer­cial activ­it­ies.

⁵ The de­fence of de­fect­ive goods re­mains avail­able to the buy­er provided he has no­ti­fied the seller with­in the pre­script­ive peri­od.

⁶ The seller may not in­voke the pre­script­ive peri­od if it is proved that he wil­fully misled the buy­er. The fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to the 30-year peri­od un­der para­graph 3.

¹ The buy­er has an ob­lig­a­tion to pay the price in ac­cord­ance with the terms of the con­tract and to ac­cept the sale ob­ject provided it is offered to him by the seller as con­trac­tu­ally agreed.

² Un­less oth­er­wise provided by agree­ment or cus­tom, such ac­cept­ance must take place im­me­di­ately.

¹ Where the buy­er places a firm or­der without in­dic­at­ing the sale price, the price is pre­sumed to be the av­er­age cur­rent mar­ket price at the place of per­form­ance.

² Where the price is based on the weight of the goods, the weight of the pack­aging (tare) is de­duc­ted.

³ The fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to spe­cial com­mer­cial cus­toms whereby the gross weight of cer­tain re­sale mer­chand­ise is re­duced by a set amount or per­cent­age or the price is based on the gross weight in­clud­ing pack­aging.

¹ The price falls due as soon as the prop­erty passes in­to the buy­er’s pos­ses­sion, un­less some oth­er junc­ture is agreed.

² Re­gard­less of the pro­vi­sion gov­ern­ing de­fault on ex­piry of a spe­cified time lim­it, in­terest ac­crues on the sale price even if no re­mind­er is is­sued where such prac­tice is cus­tom­ary or the buy­er may de­rive fruits or oth­er be­ne­fits from the pur­chased ob­ject.

¹ Where the prop­erty is to be de­livered against ad­vance pay­ment of the price in full or in in­stal­ments and the buy­er is in de­fault on such pay­ment, the seller is en­titled to with­draw from the con­tract without fur­ther form­al­ity.

² However, if he in­tends to ex­er­cise this right he must no­ti­fy the buy­er im­me­di­ately.

³ Where the pur­chased ob­ject has passed in­to the buy­er’s pos­ses­sion pri­or to pay­ment, the seller may with­draw from the con­tract on the grounds that the buy­er is in de­fault and de­mand the re­turn of the ob­ject only if he has ex­pressly re­served the right to do so.

¹ Where the buy­er in a com­mer­cial trans­ac­tion fails to dis­charge his pay­ment ob­lig­a­tion, the seller is en­titled to com­pens­a­tion for the dif­fer­ence between the sale price and the price at which he has sub­sequently sold the ob­ject in good faith.

² In the case of goods with a mar­ket or stock ex­change price, the seller is en­titled to claim as dam­ages the dif­fer­ence between the con­trac­tu­al sale price and the mar­ket price at the time of per­form­ance without need­ing to sell the ob­ject on.

¹ A con­tract for the sale of im­mov­able prop­erty is val­id only if done as a pub­lic deed.

² A pre­lim­in­ary con­tract and an agree­ment con­fer­ring a right of pre-emption, pur­chase or re­pur­chase in re­la­tion to im­mov­able prop­erty is val­id only if done as a pub­lic deed.⁷⁶

³ An agree­ment con­fer­ring a right of pre-emption without fix­ing a price is val­id if done in writ­ing.⁷⁷

Rights of pre-emption or re­pur­chase may be agreed for a max­im­um dur­a­tion of 25 years and rights of pur­chase for a max­im­um of 10 years, and they may be entered un­der pri­or­ity no­tice in the land re­gister.

¹ Un­less oth­er­wise agreed, con­trac­tu­al rights of pre-emption, pur­chase and re­pur­chase may be in­her­ited but not as­signed.

² Where as­sign­ment is per­mit­ted by con­trac­tu­al agree­ment, it is sub­ject to the same form­al re­quire­ments as ap­ply to the es­tab­lish­ment of the right.

¹ A right of pre-emption may be ex­er­cised on the sale of the im­mov­able prop­erty or any oth­er leg­al trans­ac­tion eco­nom­ic­ally equi­val­ent to a sale (pre-emption event).

² In par­tic­u­lar, the fol­low­ing are not pre-emption events: al­loc­a­tion to an heir in the di­vi­sion of an es­tate, forced sale, or ac­quis­i­tion in per­form­ance of pub­lic du­ties.

¹ The seller must in­form per­sons with a right of pre-emption of the con­clu­sion and con­tent of any con­tract of sale entered in­to.

² Where the con­tract of sale is ter­min­ated after the right of pre-emption has been ex­er­cised or if ne­ces­sary per­mis­sion is re­fused for reas­ons per­tain­ing to the per­son of the buy­er, such ter­min­a­tion or re­fus­al has no ef­fect on the per­son to whom the right of pre-emption ac­crues.

³ Un­less the pre-emption agree­ment provides oth­er­wise, the per­son with the right of pre-emption may pur­chase the prop­erty on the con­di­tions agreed by the seller with the third party.

A per­son wish­ing to ex­er­cise his right of pre-emption must give no­tice of his in­ten­tion with­in three months to the seller or, if it is entered in the land re­gister, to the own­er. This time lim­it com­mences on the day on which the per­son with the right of pre-emption be­came aware of the con­clu­sion and con­tent of the con­tract of sale.

¹ Con­di­tion­al pur­chases of im­mov­able prop­erty are not entered in the land re­gister un­til the con­di­tion has been ful­filled.

² A re­ser­va­tion of own­er­ship may not be entered in the land re­gister.

The Fed­er­al Act of 4 Oc­to­ber 1991⁸⁴ on Rur­al Land Rights ap­plies to the sale of ag­ri­cul­tur­al prop­er­ties.

¹ Un­less oth­er­wise agreed, the seller of a prop­erty must com­pensate the buy­er if it is not of the size in­dic­ated in the con­tract of sale.

² Where the prop­erty is not of the size entered in the land re­gister based on an of­fi­cial sur­vey, the seller must com­pensate the buy­er only where he gave ex­press war­ranty to that ef­fect.

³ The war­ranty ob­lig­a­tion in re­spect of de­fects in a build­ing pre­scribes five years after own­er­ship is ac­quired.

Where the agree­ment stip­u­lates a date on which the buy­er is to take pos­ses­sion of the prop­erty, the pre­sump­tion is that the as­so­ci­ated be­ne­fits and risks do not pass to the buy­er un­til that date.

In oth­er re­spects, the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing chat­tel sale ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to the sale and pur­chase of land.

¹ In a sale by sample, the per­son to whom the sample was en­trus­ted is not ob­liged to prove that the sample he presen­ted is identic­al with the one re­ceived; his per­son­al as­sur­ance to the court is suf­fi­cient, even where the sample presen­ted has altered in form since de­liv­ery, provided that such al­ter­a­tion was a ne­ces­sary con­sequence of the ex­am­in­a­tion made of the sample.

² In any event the oth­er party is en­titled to prove that the sample is not the same one.

³ If the sample has been spoiled or been des­troyed while in the pos­ses­sion of the buy­er, even if he was not at fault, the onus is not on the seller to prove that the ob­ject con­forms with the sample, but on the buy­er to prove the con­trary.

¹ In a sale on ap­prov­al or in­spec­tion, the buy­er is free to ac­cept or re­fuse the ob­ject.

² Un­til it is ac­cep­ted, the seller re­mains its own­er even if it has passed in­to the buy­er’s pos­ses­sion.

¹ Where the ob­ject is to be in­spec­ted on the premises of the seller, he is re­leased from his ob­lig­a­tion if the buy­er fails to ac­cept the ob­ject with­in the agreed or cus­tom­ary time lim­it.

² In the ab­sence of any such time lim­it the seller may, after an ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­val, call on the buy­er to de­clare wheth­er he ac­cepts the ob­ject, and the seller is re­leased from his ob­lig­a­tion if the buy­er fails to make such de­clar­a­tion im­me­di­ately on re­quest.

¹ Where the ob­ject has been de­livered to the buy­er pri­or to in­spec­tion, the sale is deemed to have been ap­proved if the buy­er neither de­clares that he re­jects the ob­ject nor re­turns it with­in the agreed or cus­tom­ary time lim­it or, in the ab­sence of any such time lim­it, im­me­di­ately on de­mand by the seller.

² The sale is sim­il­arly treated as com­pleted, if the buy­er pays the whole or part of the price without re­ser­va­tion or if he deals with the prop­erty oth­er­wise than was ne­ces­sary for its in­spec­tion.

¹ At a com­puls­ory auc­tion, a con­tract of sale is con­cluded when the of­fi­cial auc­tion­eer knocks the ob­ject down to the highest bid­der.

² In the case of a vol­un­tary auc­tion that has been pub­licly an­nounced and is open to all bid­ders, a con­tract of sale is con­cluded when the seller ac­cepts the bid of the highest bid­der.

³ Un­less the seller has ex­pressed some oth­er in­ten­tion, the auc­tion­eer is deemed to have the au­thor­ity to knock the ob­ject down to the highest bid­der.

¹ Any in­ter­ested party may with­in ten days bring a claim for avoid­ance in re­spect of an auc­tion whose out­come has been in­flu­enced by un­law­ful or im­mor­al means.

² In the case of a com­puls­ory auc­tion, the avoid­ance claim must be brought be­fore the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity, and in all oth­er cases be­fore the court.

¹ A bid­der is bound by his of­fer ac­cord­ing to the auc­tion terms and con­di­tions.

² Un­less these provide oth­er­wise, he is re­leased from his ob­lig­a­tion if a high­er bid is made or if his own bid is not ac­cep­ted im­me­di­ately after the usu­al call has been made.

¹ In the case im­mov­able prop­erty, the highest bid must be ac­cep­ted or re­fused at the auc­tion it­self.

² Any con­di­tion whereby the bid­der is bound to main­tain his bid after the auc­tion is void, oth­er than in the case of com­puls­ory auc­tions or sales of land or build­ings that re­quire of­fi­cial ap­prov­al.

¹ The suc­cess­ful bid­der must pay in cash un­less the auc­tion terms and con­di­tions provide oth­er­wise.

² The seller may im­me­di­ately with­draw from the trans­ac­tion if pay­ment is not tendered in cash or in ac­cord­ance with the auc­tion terms and con­di­tions.

¹ Sale at com­puls­ory auc­tion is without war­ranty, apart from spe­cial as­sur­ances giv­en or where the bid­ders are in­ten­tion­ally de­ceived.

² The suc­cess­ful bid­der ac­quires the ob­ject in the con­di­tion and with the at­tend­ant rights and en­cum­brances in­dic­ated in the pub­lic re­gisters or the lot de­scrip­tion and/or those that ex­ist by op­er­a­tion of law.

³ In sales at vol­un­tary pub­lic auc­tion, the seller has the same li­ab­il­ity as in any oth­er sale, but in the lot de­scrip­tion he may dis­claim any war­ranty ob­lig­a­tion with the ex­cep­tion of li­ab­il­ity for in­ten­tion­al de­ceit.

¹ The suc­cess­ful bid­der for a chat­tel ac­quires title to it as soon as it is knocked down to him, where­as own­er­ship of im­mov­able prop­erty is not trans­ferred un­til the entry is made in the land re­gister.

² The of­fi­cial auc­tion­eers im­me­di­ately no­ti­fy the land re­gistry of the sale at auc­tion by ref­er­ence to the form­al auc­tion re­cord.

³ The pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing ac­quis­i­tion of own­er­ship at com­puls­ory auc­tion are re­served.

The can­tons may en­act oth­er pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing sale at pub­lic auc­tion with­in the bounds of fed­er­al law.

The rules gov­ern­ing con­tracts of sale also ap­ply to con­tracts of ex­change in the sense that each party to the ex­change is treated as seller in re­spect of the ob­ject prom­ised by him and as buy­er in re­spect of the ob­ject prom­ised to him.

A party to the ex­change who is dis­pos­sessed of the ob­ject re­ceived or has re­turned it as de­fect­ive may either claim for dam­ages or for the re­turn of the ob­ject that he de­livered.

¹ A gift is any inter vivos dis­pos­i­tion in which a per­son uses his as­sets to en­rich an­oth­er without re­ceiv­ing an equi­val­ent con­sid­er­a­tion.

² Waiv­ing a right be­fore hav­ing ac­quired it or re­noun­cing an in­her­it­ance does not con­sti­tute a gift.

³ The per­form­ance of a mor­al duty is not con­sidered to be a gift.

¹ A per­son with ca­pa­city to act may make gifts of his as­sets with­in the bounds im­posed by mat­ri­mo­ni­al prop­erty law and in­her­it­ance law.

² The as­sets of a per­son who lacks ca­pa­city to act may be used only to make cus­tom­ary oc­ca­sion­al gifts. The li­ab­il­ity of the leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive is re­served.⁹⁴

³ ...⁹⁵

¹ A per­son who lacks ca­pa­city to act may ac­cept and leg­ally ac­quire title to a gift provided he has ca­pa­city to con­sent.

² However, the gift is not ac­quired or is an­nulled where his leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive for­bids him to ac­cept it or in­structs him to re­turn it.

¹ A gift from hand to hand is made when the donor presents the ob­ject to the re­cip­i­ent.

² Gifts of title or rights in rem to im­mov­able prop­erty are not ef­fect­ive un­til an entry is made in the land re­gister.

³ The entry pre­sup­poses a val­id prom­ise to give.

¹ The prom­ise of a gift is val­id only if done in writ­ing.

² A prom­ise to give title or rights in rem to im­mov­able prop­erty is val­id only if done as a pub­lic deed.

³ On ful­fil­ment of the prom­ise to give, the re­la­tion­ship is treated as a gift from hand to hand.

A per­son who be­stows an ob­ject on an­oth­er per­son by way of a gift may re­verse the be­stow­al at any time be­fore the re­cip­i­ent has ac­cep­ted it, even where he has ef­fect­ively sep­ar­ated it from his as­sets.

¹ Con­di­tions or pro­vis­os may be at­tached to a gift.

² A gift whose oc­cur­rence is made con­tin­gent on the donor’s death is sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing test­a­ment­ary dis­pos­i­tions.

¹ The donor may bring ac­tion for ful­fil­ment of a pro­viso that has been ac­cep­ted by the re­cip­i­ent.

² Where ful­fil­ment of the pro­viso is in the pub­lic in­terest, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may com­pel ful­fil­ment after the death of the donor.

³ The re­cip­i­ent may re­fuse to ful­fil the pro­viso if the value of the gift does not cov­er the ex­penses oc­ca­sioned by the pro­viso and he is not re­im­bursed for the short­fall.

¹ The donor may provide that the ob­ject giv­en shall re­vert to him in the event that the re­cip­i­ent dies be­fore he does.

² A re­ver­sion­ary right at­tached to a gift of title or rights in rem to im­mov­able prop­erty may be entered un­der pri­or­ity no­tice in the land re­gister.

¹ The donor is li­able for dam­age caused by the gift to the re­cip­i­ent only in the event of wil­ful in­jury or gross neg­li­gence.

² He need give only such war­ranty as he has prom­ised in re­spect of the ob­ject giv­en or the claim as­signed.

Where a gift has been made from hand to hand or a prom­ise to give has been ful­filled, the donor may re­voke the gift and claim re­turn of the ob­ject giv­en, provided the re­cip­i­ent is still en­riched thereby:

1.⁹⁶

if the re­cip­i­ent has com­mit­ted a ser­i­ous crim­in­al of­fence against the donor or a per­son close to him;

2.

if the re­cip­i­ent has grossly neg­lected his du­ties un­der fam­ily law to­wards the donor or any of the lat­ter’s de­pend­ants;

3.

if the re­cip­i­ent has failed without good cause to ful­fil the pro­vis­os at­tached to the gift.

¹ The donor who has made a prom­ise to give may re­voke the prom­ise and re­fuse to ful­fil it:

1.

on the same grounds as jus­ti­fy a claim for re­turn of the ob­ject giv­en in the case of a gift from hand to hand;

2.

where since the prom­ise was made the donor’s fin­an­cial situ­ation has altered to such an ex­tent that mak­ing the gift would cause ser­i­ous hard­ship;

3.

where since the prom­ise was made the donor has ac­quired du­ties un­der fam­ily law that pre­vi­ously did not ex­ist or were sig­ni­fic­antly less oner­ous.

² All prom­ises to give are an­nulled when a cer­ti­fic­ate of loss is is­sued against the donor or he is de­clared bank­rupt.

¹ Re­voc­a­tion may take place at any time in the year com­men­cing on the day on which the grounds for re­voc­a­tion came to the donor’s at­ten­tion.

² If the donor dies be­fore the end of this one-year peri­od, his right of ac­tion passes to his heirs for the re­mainder of the peri­od.

³ The donor’s heirs may re­voke the gift if the re­cip­i­ent wil­fully and un­law­fully caused the donor’s death or pre­ven­ted him from ex­er­cising his right of re­voc­a­tion.

Un­less oth­er­wise provided, where the donor has un­der­taken to make peri­od­ic pay­ments or per­form­ance, his ob­lig­a­tion is ex­tin­guished on his death.

Leases are con­tracts in which a land­lord or lessor grants a ten­ant or less­ee the use of an ob­ject in ex­change for rent.

¹ The pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing the leas­ing of res­id­en­tial and com­mer­cial premises are also ap­plic­able to ob­jects on such premises of which the ten­ant has use.

² They are not ap­plic­able to hol­i­day homes hired for three months or less.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is­sues the pro­vi­sions for im­ple­ment­a­tion.

¹ The pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing pro­tec­tion against un­fair rents (Art. 269 et seq.) ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to non-ag­ri­cul­tur­al leases and to oth­er con­tracts whose es­sen­tial pur­pose is to reg­u­late the trans­fer of the use of res­id­en­tial or com­mer­cial premises against valu­able con­sid­er­a­tion.

² They do not ap­ply to the lease of lux­ury apart­ments and single-oc­cu­pancy res­id­en­tial units with six or more bed­rooms and re­cep­tion rooms (not in­clud­ing the kit­chen).

³ The pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing chal­lenges to un­fair rents do not ap­ply to res­id­en­tial premises made avail­able with pub­lic sec­tor sup­port for which rent levels are set by a pub­lic au­thor­ity.

A tie-in trans­ac­tion linked to a lease of res­id­en­tial or com­mer­cial premises is void where the con­clu­sion or con­tinu­ation of the lease is made con­di­tion­al on such trans­ac­tion and, un­der its terms, the ten­ant as­sumes an ob­lig­a­tion to­wards the land­lord or a third party which is not dir­ectly con­nec­ted with the use of the leased premises.

¹ Leases may be con­cluded for a lim­ited or in­def­in­ite dur­a­tion.

² Where the in­ten­tion is that they should end without no­tice on ex­piry of the agreed dur­a­tion, they have a lim­ited dur­a­tion.

³ Oth­er leases are deemed to be of in­def­in­ite dur­a­tion.

¹ The land­lord or lessor is re­quired to make the ob­ject avail­able on the agreed date in a con­di­tion fit for its des­ig­nated use and to main­tain it in that con­di­tion.

² Clauses to the con­trary to the det­ri­ment of the ten­ant or less­ee are void if they are set out:

a.

in pre­vi­ously for­mu­lated gen­er­al terms and con­di­tions;

b.

in leases for res­id­en­tial or com­mer­cial premises.

¹ If a re­port was drawn up on the re­turn of the ob­ject at the end of the pre­vi­ous lease, the land­lord or lessor must on re­quest make this doc­u­ment avail­able for per­us­al by the new ten­ant or less­ee when the ob­ject is handed over to him.

² Sim­il­arly, the new ten­ant or less­ee has the right to be in­formed of the amount of rent paid un­der the pre­vi­ous lease.

The land­lord or lessor bears all taxes and charges in con­nec­tion with the leased ob­ject.

The rent is the con­sid­er­a­tion owed by the ten­ant or less­ee to the land­lord or lessor for the trans­fer of the use of the ob­ject.

¹ Ac­cess­ory charges are the con­sid­er­a­tion due for ser­vices provided by the land­lord or lessor or a third party in con­nec­tion with the use of the prop­erty.

² They are pay­able by the ten­ant or less­ee only where this has been spe­cific­ally agreed with the land­lord or lessor.

¹ Ac­cess­ory charges for res­id­en­tial and com­mer­cial premises are the ac­tu­al out­lays made by the land­lord for ser­vices con­nec­ted with the use of the prop­erty, such as heat­ing, hot wa­ter and oth­er op­er­at­ing costs, as well as pub­lic taxes arising from the use of the prop­erty.

² The land­lord must al­low the ten­ant on his re­quest to in­spect the doc­u­ment­a­tion for such out­lays.

The ten­ant or less­ee must pay the rent and, where ap­plic­able, the ac­cess­ory charges at the end of each month and at the latest on ex­piry of the lease, un­less oth­er­wise agreed or re­quired by loc­al cus­tom.

¹ Where, hav­ing ac­cep­ted the prop­erty, the ten­ant or less­ee is in ar­rears with pay­ments of rent or ac­cess­ory charges, the land­lord or lessor may set a time lim­it for pay­ment and no­ti­fy him that in the event of non-pay­ment the land­lord or lessor will ter­min­ate the lease on ex­piry of that time lim­it. The min­im­um time lim­it is ten days, and 30 days for leases of res­id­en­tial or com­mer­cial premises.

² In the event of non-pay­ment with­in the time lim­it the land­lord or lessor may ter­min­ate the con­tract with im­me­di­ate ef­fect or, for leases of res­id­en­tial and com­mer­cial premises, sub­ject to at least 30 days’ no­tice end­ing on the last day of a cal­en­dar month.

¹ Where the ten­ant of res­id­en­tial or com­mer­cial premises fur­nishes se­cur­ity in the form of cash or ne­go­ti­able se­cur­it­ies, the land­lord must de­pos­it it in a bank sav­ings or de­pos­it ac­count in the ten­ant’s name.

² In res­id­en­tial leases, the land­lord is not en­titled to ask for more than three months’ rent by way of se­cur­ity.

³ The bank may re­lease such se­cur­ity only with the con­sent of both parties or in com­pli­ance with a fi­nal pay­ment or­der or fi­nal de­cision of the court. On ex­piry of one year fol­low­ing the end of the lease, the ten­ant or less­ee may re­quest that the se­cur­ity be re­turned to him by the bank if no claim has been brought against him by the land­lord or lessor.

⁴ The can­tons may en­act fur­ther pro­vi­sions.

¹ The ten­ant or less­ee must use the ob­ject with all due care.

² Where the lease relates to im­mov­able prop­erty, the ten­ant must show due con­sid­er­a­tion for oth­ers who share the build­ing and for neigh­bours.

³ If, des­pite writ­ten warn­ing from the land­lord or lessor, the ten­ant or less­ee con­tin­ues to act in breach of his duty of care and con­sid­er­a­tion such that con­tinu­ation of the lease be­comes un­con­scion­able for the land­lord or lessor or oth­er per­sons shar­ing the build­ing, the land­lord or lessor may ter­min­ate the con­tract with im­me­di­ate ef­fect or, for leases of res­id­en­tial and com­mer­cial premises, sub­ject to at least 30 days’ no­tice end­ing on the last day of a cal­en­dar month.

⁴ However, leases of res­id­en­tial and com­mer­cial premises may be ter­min­ated with im­me­di­ate ef­fect if the ten­ant in­ten­tion­ally causes ser­i­ous dam­age to the prop­erty.

¹ On learn­ing of de­fects which he him­self is not ob­liged to rem­edy, the ten­ant or less­ee must in­form the land­lord or lessor.

² Fail­ure to no­ti­fy renders the ten­ant or less­ee li­able for any dam­age in­curred by the land­lord or lessor as a res­ult.

¹ The ten­ant or less­ee must tol­er­ate works in­ten­ded to rem­edy de­fects in the ob­ject or to re­pair or pre­vent dam­age.

² The ten­ant or less­ee must per­mit the land­lord or lessor to in­spect the ob­ject to the ex­tent re­quired for main­ten­ance, sale or fu­ture leas­ing.

³ The land­lord or lessor must in­form the ten­ant or less­ee of works and in­spec­tions in good time and take all due ac­count of the lat­ter’s in­terests when they are car­ried out; all claims of the ten­ant or less­ee for re­duc­tion of the rent (Art. 259d) and for dam­ages (Art. 259e) are re­served.

¹ Where the land­lord or lessor fails to hand over the prop­erty on the agreed date or hands it over with de­fects ren­der­ing it wholly or partly un­fit for its des­ig­nated use, the ten­ant or less­ee may sue for non-per­form­ance of con­trac­tu­al ob­lig­a­tions pur­su­ant to Art­icles 107–109 above.

² Where the ten­ant or less­ee ac­cepts the ob­ject des­pite such de­fects but in­sists that the con­tract be duly per­formed, he may make only such claims as would have ac­crued to him had the de­fects aris­en dur­ing the lease (Art. 259a–259i).

³ The ten­ant or less­ee may bring the claims pur­su­ant to Art­icles 259a–259i be­low even if, when handed over to him, the ob­ject has de­fects:

a.

which render the ob­ject less fit for its des­ig­nated use, al­beit not sub­stan­tially so;

b.

which the ten­ant or less­ee would have to rem­edy at his own ex­pense dur­ing the lease (Art. 259).

The ten­ant or less­ee must rem­edy de­fects which can be dealt with by minor clean­ing or re­pairs as part of reg­u­lar main­ten­ance and, de­pend­ing on loc­al cus­tom, must do so at his own ex­pense.

¹ Where de­fects arise in the ob­ject which are not at­trib­ut­able to the ten­ant or less­ee and which he is not ob­liged to rem­edy at his own ex­pense, or where he is pre­ven­ted from us­ing the ob­ject as con­trac­tu­ally agreed, he may re­quire that the land­lord or lessor:

a.

re­pair the ob­ject;

b.

re­duce the rent pro­por­tion­ately;

c.

pay dam­ages;

d.

as­sume re­spons­ib­il­ity for lit­ig­a­tion against a third party.

² In ad­di­tion, a ten­ant of im­mov­able prop­erty may pay rent on de­pos­it rather than to the land­lord.

Where the land­lord is aware of a de­fect and fails to rem­edy it with­in a reas­on­able time, the ten­ant may:

a.

ter­min­ate the con­tract with im­me­di­ate ef­fect if the de­fect renders the leased prop­erty un­fit or sig­ni­fic­antly less fit for its des­ig­nated use or renders a chat­tel less fit for pur­pose;

b.

ar­range for the de­fect to be remedied at the land­lord’s or lessor’s ex­pense if it renders the ob­ject less fit for its des­ig­nated use, al­beit not sub­stan­tially so.

The ten­ant or less­ee is not en­titled to rec­ti­fic­a­tion of the de­fect where the land­lord or lessor provides full com­pens­a­tion for the de­fect­ive ob­ject with­in a reas­on­able time.

Where the ob­ject is rendered un­fit or less fit for its des­ig­nated use, the ten­ant or less­ee may re­quire the land­lord or lessor to re­duce the rent pro­por­tion­ately from the time when the land­lord or lessor be­came aware of the de­fect un­til the de­fect is remedied.

Where the de­fect has caused dam­age to the ten­ant or less­ee, the land­lord or lessor is li­able in dam­ages un­less he can prove that he was not at fault.

Where a third party claims a right over the ob­ject that is in­com­pat­ible with the rights of the ten­ant or less­ee, on no­ti­fic­a­tion by the lat­ter the land­lord or lessor is ob­liged to as­sume re­spons­ib­il­ity for the lit­ig­a­tion.

¹ A ten­ant of im­mov­able prop­erty re­quest­ing that a de­fect be remedied must, in writ­ing, set the land­lord a reas­on­able time lim­it with­in which to com­ply with such re­quest and may warn him that, in the event of fail­ure to com­ply, on ex­piry of the time lim­it the ten­ant will de­pos­it his fu­ture rent pay­ments with an of­fice des­ig­nated by the can­ton. He must no­ti­fy the land­lord in writ­ing of his in­ten­tion to pay rent on de­pos­it.

² Rent paid on de­pos­it is deemed duly paid.

¹ The land­lord be­comes en­titled to the rent paid on de­pos­it if the ten­ant or less­ee does not bring claims against him be­fore the con­cili­ation au­thor­ity with­in 30 days of the due date for the first rent pay­ment paid in­to de­pos­it.

² On be­ing no­ti­fied by the ten­ant that he in­tends to pay rent on de­pos­it as it falls due, the land­lord may ap­ply to the con­cili­ation au­thor­ity for re­lease of rent un­justly paid on de­pos­it.

The pro­ced­ure is gov­erned by the CPO⁹⁹.

¹ The land­lord or lessor may ren­ov­ate or modi­fy the ob­ject only where con­scion­able for the ten­ant or less­ee and the lease has not been ter­min­ated.

² In car­ry­ing out such works, the land­lord or lessor must give due con­sid­er­a­tion to the ten­ant or less­ee’s in­terests; all claims of the ten­ant or less­ee for re­duc­tion of the rent (Art. 259d) and for dam­ages (Art. 259e) are re­served.

¹ The ten­ant or less­ee may ren­ov­ate or modi­fy the ob­ject only with the writ­ten con­sent of the land­lord or lessor.

² Once such con­sent has been giv­en, the land­lord or lessor may re­quire the res­tor­a­tion of the ob­ject to its pre­vi­ous con­di­tion only if this has been agreed in writ­ing.

³ Where at the end of the lease the ob­ject has ap­pre­ci­ated sig­ni­fic­antly in value as a res­ult of renov­a­tions or modi­fic­a­tions to which the land­lord or lessor con­sen­ted, the ten­ant or less­ee may claim ap­pro­pri­ate com­pens­a­tion for such ap­pre­ci­ation, sub­ject to any writ­ten agree­ments provid­ing for high­er levels of com­pens­a­tion.

¹ Where after con­clud­ing the con­tract the land­lord ali­en­ates the ob­ject or is dis­pos­sessed of it in debt col­lec­tion or bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings, the lease passes to the ac­quirer to­geth­er with own­er­ship of the ob­ject.

² However, the new own­er may:

a.

serve no­tice to ter­min­ate a lease on res­id­en­tial or com­mer­cial premises as of the next leg­ally ad­miss­ible ter­min­a­tion date if he claims an ur­gent need of such premises for him­self, his close re­l­at­ives or in-laws;

b.

serve no­tice to ter­min­ate a rent­al agree­ment in re­spect of oth­er ob­jects as of the next leg­ally ad­miss­ible ter­min­a­tion date un­less the con­tract al­lows for earli­er ter­min­a­tion.

³ If the new own­er ter­min­ates soon­er than is per­mit­ted un­der the con­tract with the ex­ist­ing land­lord or lessor, the lat­ter is li­able for all res­ult­ant losses.

⁴ The pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing com­puls­ory pur­chase are un­af­fected.

Where the land­lord or lessor grants a third party a lim­ited right in rem and this is tan­tamount to a change of own­er­ship, the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing ali­en­a­tion of the ob­ject ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis.

¹ The parties to a lease may agree to have it entered un­der pri­or­ity no­tice in the land re­gister.

² The ef­fect of such entry is that every fu­ture own­er must al­low the prop­erty to be used in ac­cord­ance with the lease.

¹ A ten­ant may sub-let all or part of the prop­erty with the land­lord’s con­sent.

² The land­lord may re­fuse his con­sent only if:

a.

the ten­ant re­fuses to in­form him of the terms of the sub-lease;

b.

the terms and con­di­tions of the sub-lease are un­fair in com­par­is­on with those of the prin­cip­al lease;

c.

the sub-let­ting gives rise to ma­jor dis­ad­vant­ages for the land­lord.

³ The ten­ant is li­able to the land­lord for en­sur­ing that the sub-ten­ant uses the prop­erty only in the man­ner per­mit­ted to the ten­ant him­self. To this end the land­lord may is­sue re­mind­ers dir­ectly to the sub-ten­ant.

¹ The ten­ant of com­mer­cial premises may trans­fer his lease to a third party with the land­lord’s writ­ten con­sent.

² The land­lord may with­hold con­sent only for good cause.

³ Once the land­lord gives his con­sent, the third party is sub­rog­ated to the rights and ob­lig­a­tions of the ten­ant un­der the lease.

⁴ The ten­ant is re­leased from his ob­lig­a­tions to­wards the land­lord. However, he re­mains jointly and sev­er­ally li­able with the third party un­til such time as the lease ends or may be ter­min­ated un­der the con­tract or by law, but in any event for no more than two years.

¹ Where the ten­ant or less­ee re­turns the ob­ject without ob­serving the no­tice peri­od or the dead­line for ter­min­a­tion, he is re­leased from his ob­lig­a­tions to­wards the land­lord or lessor only if he pro­poses a new ten­ant or less­ee who is ac­cept­able to the land­lord or lessor, solvent and will­ing to take on the lease or rent­al agree­ment un­der the same terms and con­di­tions.

² Oth­er­wise, the ten­ant or less­ee must con­tin­ue to pay the rent un­til such time as the lease ends or may be ter­min­ated un­der the con­tract or by law.

³ Against the rent ow­ing to him, the land­lord or lessor must per­mit ac­count to be taken of:

a.

any ex­penses he has saved, and

b.

any earn­ings which he has ob­tained, or in­ten­tion­ally failed to ob­tain, from put­ting the ob­ject to some oth­er use.

The land­lord or lessor and the ten­ant or less­ee may not waive in ad­vance their right to set off claims arising from the lease.

¹ Where the parties have ex­pressly or ta­citly agreed to a lim­ited dur­a­tion, the lease comes to an end on ex­piry there­of without any need for no­tice to be giv­en.

² If the lease is ta­citly con­tin­ued, its dur­a­tion be­comes in­def­in­ite.

¹ The parties may give no­tice to ter­min­ate a lease of in­def­in­ite dur­a­tion by ob­serving the leg­ally pre­scribed no­tice peri­ods and ter­min­a­tion dates, ex­cept where they have agreed a longer no­tice peri­od or a dif­fer­ent ter­min­a­tion date.

² Where the pre­scribed no­tice peri­od or ter­min­a­tion date is not ob­served, ter­min­a­tion will be ef­fect­ive as of the next ter­min­a­tion date.

A party may ter­min­ate a lease of im­mov­able prop­erty or a mov­able struc­ture by giv­ing three months’ no­tice ex­pir­ing on a date fixed by loc­al cus­tom or, in the ab­sence of such cus­tom, at the end of a six-month peri­od of the lease.

A party may ter­min­ate a lease of res­id­en­tial premises by giv­ing three months’ no­tice ex­pir­ing on a date fixed by loc­al cus­tom or, in the ab­sence of such cus­tom, at the end of a three-month peri­od of the lease.

A party may ter­min­ate the lease of a com­mer­cial prop­erty by giv­ing six months’ no­tice ex­pir­ing on a date fixed by loc­al cus­tom or, in the ab­sence of such cus­tom, at the end of a three-month peri­od of the lease.

A party may ter­min­ate the lease of fur­nished rooms, a sep­ar­ately ren­ted park­ing space or oth­er com­par­able fa­cil­ity by giv­ing two weeks’ no­tice ex­pir­ing at the end of a one-month peri­od of the lease.

A party may ter­min­ate a lease of chat­tels by giv­ing three days’ no­tice ex­pir­ing at any time.

¹ Where per­form­ance of the con­tract be­comes un­con­scion­able for the parties for good cause, they may ter­min­ate the lease by giv­ing the leg­ally pre­scribed no­tice ex­pir­ing at any time.

² The court de­term­ines the fin­an­cial con­sequences of early ter­min­a­tion, tak­ing due ac­count of all the cir­cum­stances.

¹ Where the ten­ant or less­ee be­comes bank­rupt after tak­ing pos­ses­sion of the prop­erty, the land­lord or lessor may call for se­cur­ity for fu­ture rent pay­ments. He must grant the ten­ant or less­ee and the bank­ruptcy ad­min­is­trat­ors an ap­pro­pri­ate time lim­it in which to fur­nish it.

² Where no such se­cur­ity is fur­nished to the land­lord or lessor, he may ter­min­ate the con­tract with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

In the event of the death of the ten­ant or less­ee, his heirs may ter­min­ate the con­tract by giv­ing the leg­ally pre­scribed no­tice ex­pir­ing on the next ad­miss­ible ter­min­a­tion date.

A less­ee of a chat­tel hired for his own private use and leased to him on a com­mer­cial basis by the lessor may ter­min­ate the lease by giv­ing at least 30 days’ no­tice ex­pir­ing at the end of a three-month peri­od of the lease. The lessor has no claim for com­pens­a­tion.

¹ No­tice to ter­min­ate leases of res­id­en­tial and com­mer­cial premises must be giv­en in writ­ing.

² The land­lord must give no­tice of ter­min­a­tion us­ing a form ap­proved by the can­ton which in­forms the ten­ant how he must pro­ceed if he wishes to con­test the ter­min­a­tion or ap­ply for an ex­ten­sion of the lease.

¹ Where the leased prop­erty serves as the fam­ily res­id­ence, one spouse may not ter­min­ate the lease without the ex­press con­sent of the oth­er.

² If the spouse can­not ob­tain such con­sent or it is with­held without good cause, he or she may ap­ply to the court.

³ The same pro­vi­sions ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to re­gistered part­ners.¹⁰⁰

No­tice of ter­min­a­tion giv­en by the land­lord and any no­ti­fic­a­tion of a time lim­it for pay­ment ac­com­pan­ied by a warn­ing of ter­min­a­tion in the event of non-pay­ment (Art. 257d) must be served sep­ar­ately on the ten­ant and on his spouse or re­gistered part­ner.

No­tice of ter­min­a­tion is void if it does not con­form to Art­icles 266l–266n.

¹ At the end of the lease, the ten­ant or less­ee must re­turn the ob­ject in a con­di­tion that ac­cords with its con­trac­tu­ally des­ig­nated use.

² Any clause whereby the ten­ant or less­ee un­der­takes to pay com­pens­a­tion on ter­min­a­tion of the lease is void ex­cept in­so­far as such com­pens­a­tion relates to pos­sible dam­age.

¹ When the ob­ject is re­turned, the land­lord or lessor must in­spect its con­di­tion and im­me­di­ately in­form the ten­ant or less­ee of any de­fects for which he is an­swer­able.

² If the land­lord or lessor fails to do so, he for­feits his claims save in re­spect of de­fects not de­tect­able on cus­tom­ary in­spec­tion.

³ Where the land­lord or lessor dis­cov­ers such de­fects sub­sequently, he must in­form the ten­ant or less­ee im­me­di­ately.

¹ As se­cur­ity for rent for the past year and the cur­rent six-month peri­od, a land­lord of com­mer­cial premises has a spe­cial li­en on chat­tels loc­ated on the leased premises and either used as fix­tures or re­quired for the use of the premises.

² The land­lord’s spe­cial li­en also ex­tends to prop­erty brought onto the premises by a sub-ten­ant to the ex­tent that he has not paid his rent.

³ Goods not sub­ject to at­tach­ment by cred­it­ors of the ten­ant are not sub­ject to the li­en.

¹ The rights of third parties to ob­jects which the land­lord knew or should have known do not be­long to the ten­ant and to stolen, lost, miss­ing or oth­er­wise mis­laid ob­jects take pre­ced­ence over the land­lord’s spe­cial li­en.

² Where the land­lord learns only dur­ing the lease that ob­jects brought onto the premises by the ten­ant are not the lat­ter’s prop­erty, his li­en on them is ex­tin­guished un­less he ter­min­ates the lease as of the next ad­miss­ible ter­min­a­tion date.

¹ Where the ten­ant wishes to va­cate the premises or in­tends to re­move the ob­jects loc­ated there­on, the land­lord may, with the as­sist­ance of the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity, re­tain such ob­jects as are re­quired to se­cure his claim.

² Items re­moved secretly or by force may, with po­lice as­sist­ance, be brought back onto the premises with­in ten days of their re­mov­al.

Rents are un­fair where they per­mit the land­lord to de­rive ex­cess­ive in­come from the leased prop­erty or where they are based on a clearly ex­cess­ive sale price.

In par­tic­u­lar, rents are not gen­er­ally held to be un­fair if:

a.

they fall with­in the range of rents cus­tom­ary in the loc­al­ity or dis­trict;

b.

they are jus­ti­fied by in­creases in costs or by ad­di­tion­al ser­vices provided by the land­lord;

c.

in the case of a re­cently con­struc­ted prop­erty, they do not ex­ceed the range of gross pre-tax yield re­quired to cov­er costs;

d.

they serve merely to bal­ance out a rent de­crease pre­vi­ously gran­ted as part of a real­loc­a­tion of fund­ing costs at pre­vail­ing mar­ket rates and they are set out in a pay­ment plan made known to the ten­ant in ad­vance;

e.

they serve merely to bal­ance out the in­fla­tion on the risk cap­it­al;

f.

they do not ex­ceed the levels re­com­men­ded in mas­ter agree­ments drawn up by land­lords’ and ten­ants’ as­so­ci­ations or or­gan­isa­tions rep­res­ent­ing sim­il­ar in­terests.

An agree­ment to link rent to an in­dex is val­id only where the lease is con­trac­ted for at least five years and the bench­mark is the Swiss con­sumer prices in­dex.

An agree­ment to in­crease the rent peri­od­ic­ally by fixed amounts is val­id only where:

a.

the lease is con­trac­ted for at least three years;

b.

the rent is in­creased no more than once a year; and

c.

the amount by which it is in­creased is fixed in francs.

¹ The land­lord may at any time in­crease the rent with ef­fect from the next ter­min­a­tion date. He must give no­tice of and reas­ons for the rent in­crease at least ten days be­fore the be­gin­ning of the no­tice peri­od for ter­min­a­tion us­ing a form ap­proved by the can­ton.

² The rent in­crease is void where:

a.

it is not com­mu­nic­ated us­ing the pre­scribed form;

b.

no reas­ons are giv­en;

c.

no­ti­fic­a­tion of the in­crease is ac­com­pan­ied by no­tice to ter­min­ate or a threat of ter­min­a­tion.

³ Para­graphs 1 and 2 also ap­ply where the land­lord in­tends to make oth­er uni­lat­er­al amend­ments to the lease to the det­ri­ment of the ten­ant, for ex­ample by re­du­cing the ser­vices provided or adding new ac­cess­ory charges.

¹ With­in 30 days of tak­ing pos­ses­sion of the prop­erty, the ten­ant may chal­lenge the ini­tial rent as un­fair with­in the mean­ing of Art­icles 269 and 269abe­fore the con­cili­ation au­thor­ity and re­quest said au­thor­ity to or­der a re­duc­tion of the rent:

a.

if the ten­ant felt com­pelled to con­clude the lease agree­ment on ac­count of per­son­al or fam­ily hard­ship or by reas­on of the con­di­tions pre­vail­ing on the loc­al mar­ket for res­id­en­tial and com­mer­cial premises; or

b.

if the ini­tial rent re­quired by the land­lord is sig­ni­fic­antly high­er than the pre­vi­ous rent for the same prop­erty.

² In the event of a hous­ing short­age, the can­tons may make it ob­lig­at­ory in all or part of their ter­rit­ory to use the form stip­u­lated in Art­icle 269d when con­tract­ing any new lease.

¹ The ten­ant may chal­lenge the rent as un­fair and re­quest its re­duc­tion as of the next ter­min­a­tion date where he has good cause to sup­pose that, be­cause of sig­ni­fic­ant changes to the cal­cu­la­tion basis and most not­ably a re­duc­tion in costs, the re­turn de­rived by the land­lord from the leased prop­erty is now ex­cess­ive with­in the mean­ing of Art­icles 269 and 269a.

² The ten­ant must present his re­quest for a rent re­duc­tion in writ­ing to the land­lord, who has 30 days in which to re­spond. Where the land­lord does not ac­cede to the re­quest in full or in part or does not re­spond in good time, the ten­ant may ap­ply to the con­cili­ation au­thor­ity with­in 30 days.

³ Para­graph 2 does not ap­ply if the ten­ant is sim­ul­tan­eously chal­len­ging a rent in­crease and re­quest­ing a rent re­duc­tion.

¹ With­in 30 days of re­ceiv­ing no­tice of a rent in­crease, the ten­ant may chal­lenge it be­fore the con­cili­ation au­thor­ity as un­fair with­in the mean­ing of Art­icles 269 and 269a.

² Para­graph 1 also ap­plies where the land­lord makes oth­er uni­lat­er­al amend­ments to the lease to the det­ri­ment of the ten­ant, in par­tic­u­lar by re­du­cing the ser­vices provided or adding new ac­cess­ory charges.

Without pre­ju­dice to the right to chal­lenge the ini­tial rent, a party may ar­gue be­fore the con­cili­ation au­thor­ity only that the rent in­crease or re­duc­tion re­ques­ted by the oth­er party is not jus­ti­fied by a cor­res­pond­ing change in the in­dex.

Without pre­ju­dice to the right to chal­lenge the ini­tial rent, the ten­ant may not chal­lenge peri­od­ic­al rent in­creases.

The ex­ist­ing lease re­mains in force without change:

a.

dur­ing con­cili­ation pro­ceed­ings, where the parties fail to reach agree­ment;

b.

dur­ing court pro­ceed­ings, sub­ject to pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures ordered by the court.