Lease transfer guide
Understand it allbefore youhand back the keys.
Plain answers to the questions tenants actually ask, in Geneva and in the canton of Vaud.
Practical advice · Geneva · Vaud
The essentials in 30 seconds
The detail, article by article →A solvent candidate
The candidate must be able to bear the rent reasonably.
The same conditions
They must be willing to take the apartment on the conditions of the current lease.
Evidence kept
Correspondence, applications and the dates they were sent must be kept.
The twelve guides
Updated in September 2026Early termination: the essential rules
Handing back your apartment before the end of the lease is possible, on one condition: presenting a successor who stands up to scrutiny. Here is exactly what the law asks for.
Candidates
How do you find a solvent replacement tenant?
Solvency is the first condition of your release. What it actually covers, what a managing agency checks, and why the famous “a third of income” is not in the law.
Application
Preparing an application that reassures the managing agency
A complete application is handled quickly, an incomplete one sits there. The documents usually expected, how to put them together, and what should not be passed on.
Listing
How do you write a lease-transfer listing that works?
A good listing does not try to charm: it filters. The information you cannot leave out, what is never published, and how to sort candidates before the first viewing.
Viewings
Running the viewings without losing all your evenings
Twenty individual viewings do not find a successor any faster than six well-prepared ones. How to group them, confirm them, and collect the applications on the spot.
Managing agency
Can the managing agency refuse your candidate?
Yes as to signing, no as to keeping you on the hook. The distinction is a fine one, and it decides whether you are released. What a refusal has to be able to justify.
Geneva & Vaud
Lease transfer in Geneva and the canton of Vaud: what differs?
The rule is federal and applies everywhere. What changes is the forms, the habits of the managing agencies and which conciliation authority has jurisdiction.
Moving out
The check-out inspection: what you can be charged for
This is the appointment that decides what happens to your deposit. What the landlord can put on your account, what counts as fair wear and tear, and why the report matters more than the conversation.
Moving out
Getting your rental deposit back
It sits in an account in your name, and yet you cannot touch it on your own. How it is released, the deadline that works in your favour, and what to do when the landlord stops answering.
The basics
Giving notice on your lease: deadline, form and date of receipt
A notice that is badly dated or badly signed is worth nothing, and costs you a whole term. The notice period, the term, the form, and the only date that really counts.
The basics
Sublet, or transfer your lease?
Both empty the apartment, but only one releases you. What subletting involves, the three grounds on which a landlord may refuse, and how to choose based on how long you are away.
The basics
What does a lease transfer cost?
The law sets no price, and that is the problem: the custom of charging the outgoing tenant a month's rent took hold. What can legitimately be charged, and what cannot.
You're moving out.
We take over.
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