What goes in a tenant application file

A lease takeover is decided on paper. Long before anyone meets your successor, a file about them is read by somebody who has read hundreds of others, and the answer comes back from that reading. Knowing what is in a complete file, and what is looked at inside it, is most of the work.

Who reads the file: the managing agent

Most buildings in Geneva are not run day to day by their owner. They are run by a managing agent: the office that collects the rent, arranges the repairs, keeps the leases, handles the inventories and processes a change of tenant. When you present a successor, this is who receives the application and who takes it to the owner.

It helps to picture what that office is actually doing with your file. It is not judging your candidate as a person. It is answering one question on the owner's behalf, in writing, and with a record: can this household pay this rent, month after month, for as long as the lease runs. Everything in a good file exists to answer that question quickly and without leaving a gap. Read that way, the list below stops looking like bureaucracy and starts looking like an argument.

The documents generally asked of an incoming tenant

The set is short and it is consistent across Geneva agencies. What varies is not what is requested but how completely it arrives.

• An identity document and the residence permit. Who the applicant is, and on what basis they are living in Switzerland.
• Proof of income. Recent salary slips, or a salary certificate. The point is to show income that is real, current and regular, not a single favourable month.
• A recent extract from the debt enforcement register. The official record of debt collection proceedings, which is how the absence of uncontested debts is demonstrated.
• The application form, completed from beginning to end. Every field. A form returned with blanks is the single most common reason a file goes back for a second round.

That is the list. If someone hands you a longer one for your particular building, ask which of it is required and which is preferred, and note the answer, because the two are not the same thing.

What is looked at inside the file

Two things, in general, and both of them are usages of the profession rather than rules written into the law. Agencies generally look for rent and running costs sitting at around a third of gross monthly income. And they generally look for an applicant who is not being pursued for uncontested debts, which is what the register extract shows.

Keep that distinction, because it changes what you can rely on. The law requires a solvent successor and says nothing about ratios; the third is how Geneva measures solvency in practice. It is also why a candidate who is enthusiastic but stretched is a candidate who will not pass, however much they want the flat. The legal side of the same question is set out in Article 264 explained.

Why a complete file the first time changes everything

The examination of a candidate takes the time it takes, and in Geneva it is generally described as running to about a month, shorter when the application arrives complete. That difference is entirely in your hands. A file with every document attached, every field filled and every figure legible can be decided on its own contents. A file with a gap cannot be decided at all: it has to be sent back, chased, completed and read again, and the clock restarts with it.

What a weak file costs: a month of rent

Here is the arithmetic, because it is the part worth remembering. If your candidate does not pass, nothing is salvaged. A new candidate has to be found. A new file has to be assembled. A new month of notice has to run before the release takes effect.

That month is not lost time. It is rent, and the running costs with it, on a flat you may have already emptied and left. This is why one weak application is not a small administrative setback: it is a month of rent, paid for a document that was missing. It is also why more than one serious candidate is worth having in reserve, and why nobody should be presented on enthusiasm alone. The full sequence, from the listing to the release of the lease, is inleaving your lease early in Geneva.

What we do with the file

Our part is unglamorous and it is the part that decides the outcome. We assemble the file and check it document by document, on both sides. We verify who is behind an application before anyone is shown the flat. We read the income against the rent and the running costs before it reaches the managing agent, not afterwards. We make sure the form is complete, that the permit is current, that the register extract is recent, and that the whole set arrives together rather than in instalments.

Nobody is presented until that work is finished, because presenting somebody early is the one mistake in this process that is billed in months of rent. If you would like us to handle it, start on our lease takeover page; if you want the sequence in order first, read how it works.

Frequently asked questions