My landlord and my privacy
My landlord and my privacy
I recently terminated my lease on time. The landlord came to check the state of the flat and wanted to take photographs with a view to re-letting it quickly after my departure. Personally, I refused to allow images showing the interior of my home, my furniture and my decor to be published on the internet. I tried to object to this and we argued, because my landlord claims that he is within his rights to do so. What's really going on?
N. J.
Under the Swiss Code of Obligations, at the end of the lease and at any time during the lease, the tenant must authorise the lessor to inspect the leased property insofar as this inspection is necessary for maintenance, sale or subsequent rental.
That said, landlords must be careful not to intrude unlawfully into the tenant's private sphere, which is protected by Swiss constitutional law, which states that everyone has the right to respect for their private and family life and their home.
If the owner takes and posts on the internet photographs taken outside the building in which a flat belonging to him is located, or inside an empty room, this obviously poses no problem. The same applies in principle to images taken in a room that does not contain any recognisable personal items, for example a photograph of a fixed bathroom feature such as a bathtub.
On the other hand, your landlord must obtain your consent before publishing photographs showing the interior of rooms that you have furnished and decorated yourself, as this is potentially recognisable by third parties and allows strangers to "enter" your private sphere.
If your landlord persists in his behaviour despite your clearly expressed disagreement with the photographs he intends to publish - or may already have published - on the Internet, you can take your case to the civil courts to put a stop to these actions, which infringe your personal rights.
Last year, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court also confirmed that, from a criminal perspective, the behaviour of a landlord who not only had photographs taken of the rented property without the tenant's consent, but even changed the locks on the rented property (!) in order to gain access to it in the tenant's absence, was punishable as a breach of secrecy or privacy and as duress, given the very specific circumstances of the case.
