Can the managing agency refuse your candidate?

This is the question that worries people most, and the one where misunderstandings cost the most. The answer comes down to one distinction: the landlord chooses who they sign with, but that choice does not by itself determine whether you stay committed.

Two different questions

The first: does the landlord want to enter into a contract with your candidate? They remain free to decide. Nobody can impose a contracting party on them.

The second: are you released from your obligations? That does not depend on the landlord having signed, but on your having presented a candidate who met the conditions of art. 264 CO. So a landlord may refuse to sign, and you may still be released.

A refusal has to be explainable

If your candidate is solvent, ready to take over on the same conditions, and no objective ground allows them to be set aside, refusing them in order to keep you bound does not hold. The statutory condition is that the landlord cannot reasonably refuse them: what is at stake is the reasonableness of the ground, not the landlord's will alone.

Grounds that may be well founded

• Income that is plainly insufficient for the rent.
• Significant ongoing debt-collection proceedings.
• An incomplete application, despite a request for the missing items going unanswered.
• A candidate who refuses the conditions of the current lease: rent, duration, clauses.
• A move-in date incompatible with your move-out date.
• Occupancy plainly out of proportion to the apartment.

Conversely, a refusal that rests on nothing verifiable, or on considerations unrelated to the candidate's ability to keep up the lease, is a good deal more fragile.

Ask for the grounds in writing

If your candidate is refused, ask calmly and in writing what the refusal rests on. That request is not an act of hostility: it clarifies the situation, sometimes allows an incomplete application to be put right, and leaves a record if the discussion has to continue elsewhere.

We deliberately give no figure for how long a managing agency has to answer: the law sets no general deadline, and practice varies. What can be measured, on the other hand, is the date on which you presented your candidate.

A complete application is your best protection

A refusal is much harder to justify against an application that is complete, documented and sent on an established date. A partial application, by contrast, always offers a simple and legitimate ground for refusal.

If you disagree: conciliation

If the disagreement persists, the normal route in tenancy matters goes through the competent conciliation authority. It is a free or low-cost stage, aimed at agreement, before any court proceedings.

In Geneva this is the conciliation board for leases and rents. In the canton of Vaud it is the prefectural conciliation boards. The official links are at the foot of this article.