Normally, I avoid anonymous posts, but in this case it seems justified. I have some questions about a housing situation. We live in a house in Vaud. We rent, it’s CHF4750 a month, with and additional 450 for yard work monthly. The property is very large, and borders on a natural preserve, with very steep hills (unusable as a lawn, but lovely and private). There is a large garage under the house - accessible through the basement. There are two driveways, one to the garage, one up top to the front entrance good for guest parking for up to five cars. Next to the drive are several wonderful fruit trees. We have lived here for almost five years - and love the community, the privacy and quietness of the property, and our kid likes the local school and has two more years. The landlord is elderly and more and more absentee, so the exterior maintenance and gardening has been less than perfect - especially as the son has taken over recently, and he lives in another town an hour away. We met with them yesterday as the son requested a meeting. We’d seen surveyors on the property (and the landlord’s adjoining property) and knew something was up. The son is now planning on dividing the property we are on (it is large enough for two properties, but in on the town register, it is one property currently), and building a house for himself. This will do the following: a. take away over a third of the property - the best, flattest most usable part for lawn activities. b. end our access to the garage as that driveway will be removed. New garage will be an exterior garage. c. do away with our other driveway/additional parking. (The plan is to build a new shared driveway, with a considerably smaller garage for us at one end). d. loss of the lovely fruit trees. e. a year’s worth of construction and inconvenience on the adjacent property (including our street access). The meeting was cordial and we were at first a bit nervous that we’d have to leave - which would be difficult, as there are a total of two smallish apartments currently available in our town (neither big enough for our family) and we want to remain until our child finishes the local school. On the other hand, there was no discussion of the following: a. rent reduction due to inconvenience, loss of property size, loss of amenities which we frequently enjoyed (the front garden; the parking; indoor garage access; large garage space for bikes, firewood; the fruit trees; privacy; and so on). b. no discussion of changes to terminate the lease, should we attempt to relocate (properties do occasionally come up, but they get rented quickly). c. our lease starts 1 December annually, and we have to give a three month notice (so effectively 1 August), and we aren’t prepared to do so this quickly. We did join ASLOCA (aka Mieterverband) yesterday, but haven’t contacted them yet as we want to sort through our questions and organize. I’m reaching out to you for advice, experiences, and suggestions on additional questions or things to look out for. We also want to keep things cordial, as the landlord’s adult daughter lives on adjacent property (the landlord - husband and wife - stay there about six weeks annually, and we are all pleasant together), and the adult son would be our closest neighbor. The son seemed flexible and open to questions/requests, but we kept our feelings and most questions to ourselves - not wanting to give up too much information as to our possible plans yet - the father is crafty and would likely use any advantage possible to get extra monies. One additional twist - a family we are acquainted with - as their child attends the same school as ours - just purchased the large house on the other side, next to our garden, closest to where the actual construction will take place. Obviously separate property. They are completely unaware of the new construction (landlord’s family didn’t know the house had sold. Do we let them know what’s happening, or keep our mouths closed - they take ownership from 1 August and move in this September and likely will hate any extended construction. They were extremely courteous to us, telling us about the purchase and move, and noting that they would be doing interior modifications, that the street would have some extra traffic and so on. We think they should know about the construction, as they asked us about the neighborhood and liked that we enjoyed the quiet. Thank you. submitted by /u/Desperate_Bit7334
Originally posted by u/Desperate_Bit7334 on r/Switzerland