Peculiarities of purchase

Due to the great popularity of Swiss real estate by foreigners and as a result of this – speculation and rising of prices, the Federal Law – LAFE was accepted almost 30 years ago (16.12.1983). According to the Law the buyer should obliged to undergo the procedure of approval and to receive permission for buying the property. The Law limits the purchase for foreigners, Swiss companies under foreign control and companies having their headquarters abroad. The foreign customer has right to buy only one object of property as a “secondary residence” only to stay here for leisure purposes. Such object should:

• be located in the touristic area, where it is not forbidden to buy property as a secondary residence;
• have the living area not more than 200 m2 (excluding terraces, cellars, built-in wardrobes etc);
• have land area not more than 1 000 m2;
• not have lease contracts;
• be purchased in the condition in which it was at  the moment of visiting and in the legal state as it was registered in the Real property Register.

Procedure for issuing permission to purchase lasts about 2-3 months. In this case the appropriate request for receiving permission must be included in the maximum numbers of permits to purchase residential property for seasonal living (quota), that have been given by the Confederation to the canton this year. Our notary can phone to the authorized state company and ask about the available quotas when you visit him.

Furthermore, not every canton has such quotas. The most loyal cantons are Ticino (Lugano, Ascona, Locarno), Vaud (Montreux and its region), Valais (mountain areas – Verbier, Crans-Montana, Zermatt and others), Graubunden (mountain areas – Davos, St. Moritz). For example, it is impossible to buy residential property in canton Zurich or Geneva.

There are no limits for foreigners for purchasing commercial property. But some very essential changes for buying residential property were held in 2013. In March 2012 there was a plebiscite where local population voted for the reduction of quotas for foreigners in complexes under construction. The Law came into force from the 1^st of January 2013. Nowadays there are only 20% of apartments that can be sold to foreigners. Before this Law foreigners could buy about 70% apartments in new buildings. Because of this it becomes more difficult to buy residential property for foreigners, accordingly, the prices for such kind of property increase. So a lot of people try to decide whether to buy property or not very quickly.