The Zurich Tenancy Court, a specialized court for disputes amongst tenants and landlords - ruled in a decision published this week that a tenant is basically allowed to provide his or her apartment via Airbnb to paying guests, thereby applying four tests: the tenant-host must obtain the general consent of the landlord and thereby disclose the conditions of the sub-rent. The subrental payments cannot be abusive and the landlord may not suffer any substantial disadvantages from the sub-rent.
In the case of the Zurich tenant-host, none of these tests were fulfilled. As the court held, the tenant-host had not informed the landlord, had received an "abusively high rate of subrent" from the paying guests, whilst not avoiding that co-tenants in the same house were materially and constantly disturbed by the Airbnb-guests.
The tenant-host had misstated towards the Tenancy Court the number of subrentals. The court has consulted the platform and concluded that the apartment has been rented at least twelve times (instead of three to four times as indicated) at a princely price of CHF 220 francs per night plus cleaning costs of CHF 60 to CHF 80.
As a result of the abusive subrental payments and the false statements in the tenancy proceedings, the Tenancy Court prohibited the tenant-host from any further sub-letting via Airbnb and other platforms, whilst he was ordered to restitute his landlord for the illicit profits made.
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