Until the Federal Supreme Court decision in 2020 published below, the net yield was permissible within the meaning of Art. 269 OR according to the case law of the Federal Supreme Court, as long as it did not exceed the interest rate for first mortgages by more than half a percent (refer to Federal Law BGE 123 III 171 E. 6a). Since 1 January 2008, this has been based on a reference interest rate that is uniform throughout Switzerland and is determined quarterly by the Federal Department of Economic Affairs (Art. 12a VMWG). If you add 0.5 % to the current reference interest rate (aktuellen Referenzzinssatz), you get the maximum permissible net yield.
The net return can be calculated with the following formula:
Net return = net rental income x 100 : transaction value
Whereby: net rental income = rent excluding any ancillary costs paid by the tenant and without any provisions or administrative costs that are the responsibility of the landlord (maintenance, vacant periods, etc.).
New case law due to a Federal Supreme Court ruling in 2020
In 2020, the Federal Supreme Court changed two parameters for determining the net yield. In future, the invested equity capital must be fully adjusted for inflation. An admissible net return is a return that exceeds the reference interest rate by 2 percent if the reference interest rate is 2 percent or less (which is obviously the case in this low-interest phase).
