Tenants demand halt to rent initiative counterproposal

The Swiss Tenants’ Association has submitted an appeal with 100,848 signatures urging the Federal Council to stop work on its counterproposal to the rent initiative, SRF reported.

The association says the draft should include automatic rent reviews and cost-based rents. The initiative calls for rents to be checked automatically and reduced if they are too high. The Federal Council’s proposed countermeasure would instead allow initial rents to be linked to statistical rents for similar homes nearby.

The association argues that each new, higher rent would feed into those comparisons and drive rents higher. Under the planned counterproposal, rents could also rise every four years, with no provision for reviews, it says.

Jacqueline Badran, a member of the association’s board and a member of the National Council, said the Federal Council was proposing market rents, the opposite of the initiative. The initiative aims to establish cost-based rents and cap returns, she said.

Association president Carlo Sommaruga said tenants already paid too much for housing and would not accept paying more. He described the number of signatures collected in two weeks as a clear response to the Federal Council.