Your situation
Separation or divorce, and a joint lease
This page deals with the flat only: what a lease signed by two people still binds you to, which questions belong elsewhere, and what we can organise once you have decided.
What a joint lease still commits you to
A lease signed by two people is a contract with the landlord, and it is unaffected by anything the two of you agree between yourselves. The landlord has two tenants. Both remain bound by the lease until it ends or until the landlord accepts a change to it. An agreement that one of you will pay the rent from now on is an arrangement between you; it does not release the other from the contract.
The practical consequence is that moving out does not end anything. If one of you leaves and the rent goes unpaid, the landlord can still turn to either of you. Removing a name from a joint lease requires the landlord's agreement, usually in writing, and the landlord will examine whoever is left as it would any new applicant: income against rent and running costs, debt enforcement register extract, residence permit where relevant.What goes in a tenant file sets out what is generally looked at.
Some questions belong to a court, not to an agency
Where the flat is the family home, it may be the subject of specific measures, including measures a court can order about who lives there and on what terms. Those questions are decided by a judge, in the context of the separation or the divorce, and they can affect what either party is entitled to do with the lease.
We do not answer them, and we will not tell you what a court is likely to decide in your case. If the flat is the family home, if there are children, if there is disagreement about who stays, or if proceedings have already begun, take legal advice before acting on the lease. A step taken now to reduce the rent can be hard to undo, and the order in which things are done matters.
The rest of this page assumes the housing question is settled between you: both of you agree that the flat is to be given up.
Giving up the flat when both parties agree
Two homes cost more than one, and a joint lease neither party is using is the least useful expense in a separation. The ordinary route out of a Swiss lease applies here as anywhere else. UnderArticle 264 of the Swiss Code of Obligations, a tenant who returns the property before the end of the lease is released from it by presenting a solvent successor willing to take it over on the existing terms, whom the landlord cannot reasonably refuse.Article 264 explained covers the conditions in detail, andleaving your lease early in Genevadescribes the procedure from the first conversation to the handover.
Two points are worth settling before the search starts. Both tenants normally have to sign the notice and the takeover documents, so the decision has to hold to the end of the file. And the deposit, held in a blocked account, is released according to what the account provides and what the parties agree, which is easier to organise while you are still talking: getting your deposit back explains how.
What we do, and what we do not do
We find the successor and run the procedure. That means preparing the file, arranging the professional photographs, publishing the listing on the Geneva property portals, receiving and checking the applications, holding the viewings ourselves, presenting the qualified candidates to the managing agent, and following the file through to the exit inventory and the release of the lease.
Two things matter more than usual here. We correspond with both tenants on the same terms, so neither of you learns from the other what has been decided. And we conduct the viewings, so neither of you has to be in the flat while strangers walk through it.
We do not mediate, we do not advise on the separation, and we do not take instructions from one party about the other. Where you do not agree on giving up the flat, there is nothing useful we can do until that is resolved with your advisers.
No fee for the outgoing tenant when we find the successor, in exchange for two weeks of exclusivity. The terms are set out onis it really free, and thelease takeover page is where a file is opened.
Hand over your lease with a team that does it every week
Tell us about your flat and your move-out date. We handle your file within 24 hours. When we find your incoming tenant, the service costs you nothing.