Your situation
On a short-term or furnished lease
Furnished flats and fixed-term contracts are governed first by what the contract says. Read it before you act, then decide which way out is open to you.
A different kind of contract
Furnished and short-term lets are a market of their own in Geneva. They house people arriving for a defined stretch of time: a fixed-term contract, a training period, a secondment, a first few months before the family follows. The flat comes with its contents, the rent is typically all-inclusive, and the paperwork was signed quickly because the arrival was.
Then the stay changes shape. The contract is extended somewhere else, the assignment is cut short, or a permanent flat finally comes up and the furnished one has become an expensive duplicate. The question is the same as on any other lease — how do I stop paying for this? — but the answer is not read off the general rules in the same way.
The contract sets the dates and the exit
Short-term and furnished leases commonly set their own framework: a fixed end date, a renewal mechanism, a notice period specific to that agreement, and sometimes conditions on who may occupy the flat and on whether the tenancy may pass to somebody else. Those terms are what govern your situation, and they vary considerably from one landlord to another.
So one instruction comes before all the others: read your contract in full before you give notice, advertise anything or promise a date to anyone. Look for the end date and how it renews, the notice period and the form it has to take, any clause on subletting or on transferring the lease, what the inclusive rent covers, and what happens to the deposit. If a clause is unclear, ask the managing agent in writing and keep the answer.
The inventory of furniture carries real weight
On an unfurnished lease the exit inspection concerns the walls, the floors and the fittings. On a furnished one it concerns everything else as well: the sofa, the bed, the crockery, the lamps, the linen, down to the number of chairs. The inventory drawn up when you moved in is the document you will be measured against when you leave, item by item.
Find that inventory now rather than on the morning of the handover. Check that what is in the flat still matches it, note anything broken, replaced or put in the cellar, and keep the dated photographs you took on arrival. Disputes on furnished lets are almost always about objects nobody wrote down.What happens at the final walk-throughdescribes how the appointment is run.
Can a furnished lease be handed over?
In many cases, yes. Presenting a solvent successor willing to take over the lease on the existing terms is the general route out of a Swiss lease, underArticle 264 of the Swiss Code of Obligations, and furnished flats are let under leases like any others. Demand for short and furnished tenancies in Geneva is real, which usually works in your favour when it comes to finding someone.
But everything depends on what your contract says, on the time still to run, and on what the landlord will accept. A fixed term with very little left may be better seen through to its end date than handed over. Where you are leaving temporarily and intend to return, subletting may be the right structure, and it has its own conditions: our guide tosubletting rules in Switzerlandcovers them. Send us the contract and we will tell you which of the three it is.
How we handle furnished and short lets
A furnished flat is presented differently from an empty one, because the contents are part of what is being offered. We photograph it as it stands, with a professional, and write the listing around what the tenant is actually getting for an inclusive rent. We publish it on the Geneva property portals, take in the applications, and check each candidate the way the managing agent will: income against rent and running costs, debt enforcement register extract, residence permit, a complete file. We run the viewings, present the qualified candidates, and stay with the file through to the inventory and the release of the lease.
Short lets move quickly and candidates are often abroad when they apply, so the screening has to be right first time. A candidate who does not pass sends the procedure back to the beginning with a fresh month of notice, which on a short contract is a large share of what is left. The lease takeover page sets out each stage and carries the form; tell us the type of property and the furnishing when you write, because it changes how we work.
Furnished or otherwise: no fee for the outgoing tenant when we find the successor, in exchange for two weeks of exclusivity. The arrangement is explained on is it really free.
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.