Bribing your landlord

The best piece of advice anyone gave me about looking for an apartment in Zurich was to treat the process like an extended job interview: wear a suit, do your homework and be prepared for some stiff competition. Last time I lived in Zurich I didn’t follow these pointers and it took me months to find a home. When I did, it turned out to be noisy and located next door to a brothel. I was determined this time to do it differently.

Where I come from, renting a flat is a relatively straightforward process. You find a place that is habitable, hand over half your monthly income to a complete stranger and that’s it. Your landlord doesn’t want to know who you are or where you’ve been. So long as you don’t burn the place down, he’ll be happy. In Switzerland this is different as I soon discovered.

The first hurdle is the flat viewing. After weeks of scouring websites and newspapers, we thought we had found the flat of our dreams. But on arriving at the appointed viewing time, we discovered that 48 other people had the same dreams as we did. As we meekly checked out how many rooms it had, our co-viewers were striding around the place like they lived in it already. They were trying to find the most suitable location for their sofa and where to put the chair while we were still trying to work out if we even wanted to live there. Like all good house parties, the letting agent is hiding in the kitchen, clutching a bunch of application forms and surrounded by a gaggle of desperate flat-hunters. At this point, we decided to move on.

The key to success in finding a flat lies in presenting the right paperwork. In Switzerland, paper has a value, and this doesn’t just refer to bank notes. Paper with a stamp on it or a signature is particularly valuable and personal references even more so: if you can get a Swiss person to admit, on paper, that they know and like you, then so much the better. Bring your work permit, your employment contract, your birth certificate and your bank statements because no piece of documentation is too insignificant when convincing your future landlord of your good character.

If all else fails, then resort to bribery. It seems that many Expats are driven to extreme measures in the quest to get a roof over their heads. Someone told me of one couple who sent chocolates to the landlord to be, a true sweetner, and another who plied the owner of their apartment with a bottle of wine. It seems that a personal touch works wonders in Switzerland, where contacts are built and grow over years. Another suggestion was to send a photo with your application, to prove to the letting agent that you and your partner are not axe-murderers. If you really want to swing it, then a copy of your bank statement should do the trick, assuming you have some money of course.

When we finally found the flat we wanted, we swung into action. Like the job you know you want, we pulled out all the stops. I drew the line at the holiday snaps as I wasn’t convinced that was going to help us. But I did write a letter together with our application effectively begging to be allowed to live under this man’s roof. Amazingly, it worked. We move in next month. And we didn’t have to send chocolates.