The building's house rules: the document that decides on short-term letting more often than building law does
Most lettings are not ended by the building authority but by the neighbours. And their yardstick is in the house rules.
What are the house rules of a Swiss building?
The house rules are a building's rulebook for living together: quiet hours, use of communal rooms, stairwell, laundry, waste. They are issued by the owner or the condominium community and apply to everyone in the building — including guests of a short-let flat, whose conduct is attributed to the person letting it.
Two documents that get confused
The building's house rules and the house rules in your Airbnb listing are not the same thing, and confusing them has consequences.
The building's house rules apply to everyone in the house by virtue of the tenancy or ownership. They come from the owner or the condominium community, and you cannot change them. The house rules in your listing are your own terms towards the guest — they can be stricter than the building's, never milder.
In practice: what is in the building's house rules belongs in your listing rules. A guest who does not know the building's quiet hours will break them, and the complaint lands with you.
What they typically contain
The content is remarkably uniform across Swiss buildings. Four points regularly become flashpoints in short-term letting:
- Quiet hours — usually 10 pm to 7 am, plus a midday period and Sundays; by far the commonest ground for complaint
- Communal rooms — laundry with a rota, bicycle store, drying room; guests know neither the rota nor the custom
- Stairwell and entrance — leaving luggage, shoes or prams, and the front door left open
- Waste — separation, the Zurich charged rubbish bag, collection days; rarely self-explanatory for guests from abroad
Who guests' conduct is attributed to
You. A guest stands in no relationship to the building — the administrator turns to the owner or tenant of the flat, and that is you. Repeated breaches can have tenancy-law consequences and are, in a condominium, the argument used to apply for a rule on use.
The most effective measure is therefore not a legal one but an organisational one: the quiet hours in your listing rules, in the arrival information and visibly in the flat, plus a minimum stay that rules out weekend parties from the outset.
Frequently asked questions
- Do the building's house rules apply to my Airbnb guests?
- Yes. They bind everyone present in the building, and guests' conduct is attributed to you — the administrator turns to you, not to the guest. So carry the quiet hours and the rules on communal rooms word for word into your listing rules and your arrival information.
- Can the house rules prohibit Airbnb?
- House rules govern living together, not the type of use — a letting prohibition belongs in the condominium community's rules or in the tenancy agreement, not in the house rules. In practice the line is blurred: a provision on the number of occupants or on commercial use in the building can have the same effect.
- What should I do if neighbours complain?
- Answer, and do it the same day. A complaint left unanswered goes to the administrator and from there into minutes. Give a telephone number on which you can be reached if there is a disturbance, and raise the minimum stay — that is the most effective instrument, and it works before the booking rather than after.
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