Transit authorities charge for access to badges
Transit authorities charge for access to badges
"I wanted to obtain a badge, so I asked my management for the necessary certificate. In reply, I received a payment slip for CHF 10.00, and was told that in order to receive such a document, I would have to pay the fee. Is this legal? "
Philippe, Geneva
A tenancy agreement is governed not only by the specific clauses of the contract between the tenant and the landlord, but also by the provisions of the Code of Obligations (CO) and those of the Contrat Cadre Romand, as well as by various special laws, mainly cantonal.
There are various types of fees or emoluments that can be included in a tenancy agreement, unless charging them contravenes mandatory legal provisions.
The Code of Obligations does not deal strictly with "administrative" costs, but it should be noted that the Federal Court has ruled that certain costs claimed by the lessor may be null and void, in particular those sometimes claimed for the early return of a property.
In the situation you have described, the administrative fees charged by your housing association are probably motivated by the workload that the association deems necessary to draw up the certificate you are requesting. There is no unanimity in the legal literature on this subject: legal specialists who mainly defend the cause of landlords will argue that charging such fees is justified in response to requests that exceed what the tenant can demand on the basis of the tenancy agreement and that are not directly related to the rented property. The tenants' defenders, on the other hand, took the view that such services were included in the rent, since they were management costs that could not be claimed in addition.
Is your local authority therefore entitled to charge you for the additional service you require to park your car, which generates a certain amount of administrative work for it? The courts do not yet seem to have settled this question. That's why landlords' practice on administrative fees is not uniform.
Examine whether your lease contract (not forgetting its general terms and conditions) contains a clause relating to administrative costs. If so, and if there is nothing unlawful in this provision, only a judge can decide whether the costs indicated therein are part of the ordinary management of the building and are included in the rent or whether, on the contrary, they are not costs included in the use of the rented property, which does indeed generate additional work for your management company.
