A community of heirs and short-term letting: why everyone has to consent — and what works in deadlock

Why nobody can decide alone

On a death, article 602 of the Civil Code creates a community of heirs, and it holds the estate in joint ownership. That is something other than co-ownership: with co-ownership each person owns a fraction they can dispose of. With joint ownership everything belongs to everyone together, and nothing to anyone alone.

From which follows the sentence everything else turns on: acts of administration and disposal require the consent of all heirs. Not a majority, not a majority of shares — all of them. A single heir can neither sell nor let the flat, even holding ninety per cent while the other three hold a little over three each.

For short-term letting that means: it is not an ordinary act of administration but a decision about the type of use of an estate asset. Anyone starting it without the co-heirs’ consent acts without a basis — regardless of how sensible the arithmetic behind it is.

What the waiting costs

The unanimity principle is meant as a protection and works in practice as a paralysis. Dividing an estate rarely takes weeks; a year is ordinary, several years occur when a property is involved and views diverge.

During that time the flat usually stands empty — and a vacancy is not free. Mortgage interest, ancillary costs, building insurance and maintenance run on, the property ages without use, and the income forgone appears in no statement, because it never appeared at all.

That is the real argument towards hesitant co-heirs: not «we could earn something» but «waiting costs us jointly a figure each month that we can name». A number in the proposal works differently from an intention.

The three routes out of the deadlock

Where unanimity cannot be reached there are three possibilities, and they differ considerably in effort and finality.

• A unanimous resolution with a time limit — the simplest route. A resolution for two years with a review is easier to obtain than an open-ended one, because it commits nobody.
• A representative of the heirs under article 602 paragraph 3 of the Civil Code — any single heir may apply to the competent authority to have one appointed. It makes the community capable of acting even where it cannot agree. In the canton of Zurich the estate office is the body to approach.
• Bringing the division forward — the flat is allotted to one heir who pays the others out. After that they decide alone. The cleanest route and the slowest.

What has to be settled before the first guest

Four points, and they turn not on succession law but on the flat. They apply to any short-term letting — in a community of heirs with the sole difference that they concern several people.

• The zone: whether the address permits short-term letting at all is set out in the municipality’s building and zoning ordinance. The building authority’s answer is free and belongs before any resolution.
• Condominium ownership: if the flat lies in a community, its rules come on top of the succession questions — two bodies, not one.
• Insurance: a policy that ran in the deceased’s name does not automatically cover commercial use by the heirs. It belongs declared and adjusted.
• Tax: income is attributed to the heirs pro rata and each declares their share. Anyone noticing that only at tax-return time has not set the accounting up for it.

How a management company works in this situation

The difference from an ordinary arrangement lies not in the operation but in who is addressed. A contract with a community of heirs is signed by all the heirs or by the representative — signed by a single heir it does not hold, and that is in our interest too.

With a community of heirs and an empty flat, setting the accounting up on shares from the start proves itself: each heir gets their own statement rather than the community getting one from which somebody would have to distribute onwards. That heads off a large part of the later friction.

And the notice period belongs named. An arrangement cancellable monthly is worth more in a community of heirs than a good rate: once the division comes, nobody has to get out of a contract they no longer want.