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Condominium ownership is governed by Article 712ff. of the Swiss Civil Code. Legislators originally planned to leave condominium ownership to the cantons or municipalities for regulation. However, after continental Europe underwent two destructive wars and the housing shortage became continually more precarious, many states took the decision to regulate condominium ownership uniformly. Therefore, all the norms concerning condominium ownership are regulated in Art. 712a-t CC. Our attorneys in Frauenfeld, Zurich and St. Gallen are happy to navigate the relevant articles on condominium ownership according to your legal matter.
When introducing condominium ownership, the legislator opted for non-genuine condominium ownership. Only Switzerland and Austria use this concept. Other countries opted for true condominium ownership when creating the norms. The non-genuine condominium ownership is characterized by the co-ownership of the property, where all individual co-owners have special rights to their part of the condominium. The special right is characterized by exclusive rights of use and management, which is why condominium ownership is also referred to as "qualified co-ownership". Accordingly, Art. 712a para. 1 CC states: "Condominium is a form of co-ownership of immovable property that gives the co-owner the exclusive right to make sole use of specific parts of a building thereon and design the interior of such parts.". For this reason, condominium ownership is a special form of co-ownership in which interior construction measures are permitted. Unsurprisingly, many norms of co-ownership according to Art. 646ff. SCC are applied to condominium ownership. This is due to the accession principle of property law. According to Art. 642 Para. 1 CC, if someone is the owner of a thing, he is then automatically the owner of all its components. Since an apartment is a component part of a building, it is legally impossible to be the owner of a component part. If you have any questions regarding (co-)ownership, please do not hesitate to contact one of our attorneys in St. Gallen, Zurich or Frauenfeld.
According to Art. 712b para. 1 CC, parts of a building may be subject to a special right. In order to be so, the unit of the building must have an economic purpose. This means that the premise is used either for business or for housing. In addition, the unit of the building needs its own access via a communal part of the building. Furthermore, the object of the special right must be self-contained, although this may include ancillary rooms (for example, cellars). Some problems of condominium ownership arise from this self-containment. For example, it is not possible to have special rights to a roof terrace or a garden seating area. Both of these are considered communal parts of the building, since they do not meet the criterion of self-containment. This difficulty can be solved with special rights of use. These are attached to the land register sheet of the condominium. In the case of a special right of use, the other condominium owners renounce the use of a communal part of the building to one of the other owners. If your condominium owners' association is in dispute, Teichmann International’s attorneys at law in Switzerland will be happy to assist you.