National Council advocates partial waiver of business rents
After months of wrangling over rents for stores forced to close in the lockdown, a compromise is on the horizon. The National Council supports a rent waiver of 60%.
According to the proposal, which was approved by the Grand Chamber by 98 votes to 84 with twelve abstentions, business operators should owe their landlord only 40% of the rent for the duration of the officially ordered closure due to the Corona pandemic. A rent cap of CHF20,000 is to apply. Establishments that have had to reduce their activities are to receive a limited reduction. For rents between CHF 15,000 and CHF 20,000, tenants and landlords can waive this solution, and agreements that have already been made should remain valid. For landlords, the Federal Council is to provide a hardship fund of 20 million.
Next Monday (June 8), the Council of States will deal with an identical motion. If it adopts it, the motion will be deemed to have been passed.
In the extraordinary Corona session at the beginning of May, the Councils had been unable to agree on a solution for commercial enterprises. The Council of States had strongly amended a motion of the Economic Commission (WAK) of the National Council, which had called for a rent waiver of 70%. However, the WAK of the National Council rejected these amendments and now submitted a new motion.
The Federal Council rejects the new motion as well as the previous ones. In a statement, the Federal Council writes that the complex issues of tenancy law cannot be solved across the board by temporary amendments to the law. The Swiss Real Estate Association (VIS) also opposes the compromise proposal: Tenancies are subject to private law, solutions must be found individually. This has already been done for two thirds of the affected tenancies, says the association, which conducted a survey among 30 real estate companies. (ah)
