When the copropriété rules out short stays, or the commune refuses the change-of-use authorisation, a classic lease is the lawful way to make the apartment earn. We find the tenant, screen the file, draft the contract — and manage the tenancy if you want us to.
Before advising anyone to list an apartment nightly, we check three things. In Montreux and across Vaud, at least one of them is closed surprisingly often.
Short stays in a condominium are lawful only if the règlement d'administration et d'utilisation allows them — or if the owners' assembly amends it. Many PPEs in Montreux forbid commercial or repeated short-stay use, and a single owner can keep an amendment from ever passing.
In Vaud, making a dwelling available for more than 90 nights a year in a housing-shortage area is a change of use: it needs prior authorisation through the commune, on top of the host registration every host must file with the Office du commerce et des manifestations at least 10 days before the first night. Without it, the order is to return the flat to residential use.
For owners resident abroad, a property carrying a Lex Koller (LFAIE) restriction was generally authorised on a residential basis. Running it as commercial short-term accommodation does not sit well with that basis — and no communal tourist permit can cure a federal ownership restriction.
We check all three before advising you. When short-term is genuinely closed, we will not sell you a short-term mandate — we let the apartment properly, on a lease.
A long-term lease is an ordinary Swiss residential tenancy: the tenant signs an agreement under art. 253 ff. of the Code of Obligations, pays rent to you directly, lodges a deposit of at most three months' rent (art. 257e CO) and takes the flat for a fixed term — typically one to three years, renewable, or three to twelve months furnished. You stay the landlord, the flat is occupied by a resident rather than by tourists, and no change-of-use authorisation, host register or tourist tax is involved. The only formality that survives is the tenant's own: everyone residing more than three months in a commune must announce their arrival at the population office within eight days (art. 3 of the Vaud law on population control) — no host announcement, no lodger register, no monthly bulletin to the police, no tourist tax. RivieraHost acts as your letting agent and, if you wish, as the day-to-day manager of the tenancy.
Art. 74b al. 2 LEAE (Vaud): « La location ou la sous-location est de brève durée lorsqu'elle porte sur une période pour laquelle l'hôte résidant n'est pas soumis à l'obligation de déclarer son arrivée à la commune concernée en application de la législation sur le contrôle des habitants. »Loi du 31 mai 2005 sur l'exercice des activités économiques (LEAE, RSV 930.01), art. 74b al. 2 — text as published by the Canton of Vaud
Read the definition the other way round and it settles the question: as soon as the occupier is subject to the arrival declaration, the letting is no longer of short duration. That declaration is due above three months — so a one-to-three-year lease, or a furnished lease of three to twelve months, falls outside the short-stay regime by definition: no change-of-use authorisation, no host announcement (art. 74c LEAE), no registre des hébergés, no monthly bulletin, no tourist tax. This is exactly the distinction the commune's own services draw when an owner asks them.
Art. 3 al. 1 and 3 LCH (Vaud, RSV 142.01): « Quiconque réside plus de trois mois consécutifs ou plus de trois mois par an dans une commune du canton, est tenu d'y annoncer son arrivée. » Al. 3: « Lorsqu'un séjour de plus de trois mois est d'emblée prévisible, l'annonce aura lieu dans les huit jours qui suivent l'arrivée. » — a signed lease is exactly what makes the stay foreseeable, so the eight-day declaration applies, and it is the tenant who files it, not the landlord; we prepare the pack. Source: État de Vaud — locations de type Airbnb.
Both are ordinary leases. The furnished mid-term track earns the most per month; the classic track is the quietest to run.
In practice the two are used in sequence: a furnished 6–12-month lease first, then a classic one-to-three-year lease when the tenant decides to stay.
Everything a Swiss landlord has to do, done for you — in the same language your future tenant speaks.
Three ways to earn from the same apartment. Only two are available where short-term is not authorised.
Our commission is 10% of the rent actually collected — about one month's rent per year of tenancy. No setup fee, no subscription, nothing invoiced while the apartment stands empty.
If you only want the flat let and prefer to manage the tenancy yourself, a placement-only mandate is available on request. Whatever the mandate, the terms are put in writing before we publish anything.
Tell us about the apartment and where short-term letting stands today. You will get a realistic long-term rent, the legal position, and the next step in writing. No obligation.
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