Illegal practice has consequences Tenants are exposed as Airbnb providers in Zurich - eviction

Despite an explicit ban, some tenants are renting out city apartments in Zurich via Airbnb. They have now been given notice.

The city of Zurich expressly prohibits its tenants from "repeatedly subletting part or all of their apartment for short periods via rental platforms". This is stated in the rental regulations.

Despite clear regulations, some tenants in the city's Hornbach and Hardau II housing estates use the Airbnb platform to rent out their apartments. This is according to a recently published response from Zurich City Council to a question from the SP and GLP.

If the city finds out about this, it will stop the practice immediately. The problem: Airbnb does not list exact addresses. A systematic check is therefore not possible; the city relies on tips from neighbors, janitors or Airbnb users, as theTages-Anzeigernewspaper writes.

The tenancy was terminated

If a case is discovered, a warning is issued first. In most cases, the advertisement is then removed, as communicated by the city council. But this does not always happen. In one case, the warning was ignored. The tenancy was terminated due to commercial use of the apartment.

The same thing happened in an apartment owned by the municipal foundation Wohnen für kinderreiche Familien (SWkF), which was rented by the Jugendwohnnetz (Juwo), and in an apartment owned by the municipal foundation Einfach Wohnen (SEW). Juwo immediately terminated its subletting agreement, and the subletting was also "immediately stopped" at SEW after it became known, according to the city council's response, as the newspaper writes.

The city of Zurich has introduced stricter rules for subletting its apartments. It only allows subletting in municipal apartments with written consent and in compliance with other requirements.

City relies on information

In its answer to the municipal council's question, the city now announces that 320 of its more than 10,000 apartments are sublet regularly, i.e. not via Airbnb. That is around 3 percent of the city's apartments.

The same applies here: cases of unauthorized subletting are usually discovered through reports from third parties. Systematic controls are difficult, writes the city council. The city relies on information that can be reported to the city via a corresponding tool.

There is no fixed upper limit for subletting in Zurich. In order to gain a better overview and identify unreported subletting, the city is planning a comprehensive review of all tenancies.