Federal Act
on the Amendment of the Swiss Civil Code
(Part Five: The Code of Obligations)

¹ The surety is sub­rog­ated to the cred­it­or’s rights to the ex­tent that he has sat­is­fied him. The surety may ex­er­cise these as soon as the ob­lig­a­tion falls due.

² However, un­less oth­er­wise agreed, he is sub­rog­ated only to those li­ens and oth­er se­cur­it­ies which had been fur­nished when the con­tract of surety was con­cluded or were sub­sequently ob­tained from the prin­cip­al debt­or for the spe­cif­ic pur­pose of se­cur­ing the claim. If on pay­ing only part of the debt the surety is sub­rog­ated to only part of a li­en, the part re­main­ing with the cred­it­or takes pre­ced­ence over that of the surety.

³ Spe­cial claims and de­fences arising from the leg­al re­la­tion­ship between the surety and the prin­cip­al debt­or are re­served.

⁴ Where a pledge se­cur­ing a claim un­der surety is real­ised or the own­er of the pledge pays vol­un­tar­ily, he may only have re­course against the surety for such pay­ment where an agree­ment to this ef­fect was reached between the pledgor and the surety or the pledge was giv­en sub­sequently by a third party.

⁵ The pre­script­ive peri­od for the surety’s right of re­course com­mences on sat­is­fac­tion of the cred­it­or by the surety.

⁶ The surety has no right of re­course against the prin­cip­al debt­or for pay­ment of any ob­lig­a­tion that is not ac­tion­able or not bind­ing on the prin­cip­al debt­or as a res­ult of er­ror or in­ca­pa­city to make a con­tract. However, if he has as­sumed li­ab­il­ity for a time-barred ob­lig­a­tion at the be­hest of the prin­cip­al debt­or, the lat­ter is li­able to him pur­su­ant to the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing man­dates.