05.2 / Swiss real estate audit

Arithmetically clean is not the same as steerable.

A property statement can add up to the last franc and still leave the owners unable to tell what to fix, what to ask and what to stop paying.

2 tools
5 sources
7 min read

A property statement audit is a line-by-line review of the manager's annual statement, ledgers, rent roll, contracts and offers. Every franc is traced to a source row, benchmarked, checked against Swiss tenancy and tax law, and graded proven, plausible or open. What the owners receive is a ranked list of decisions.

One anonymised mandate: recurring potential of CHF 60'000 to 155'000 per year, deduplicated. 1

05.2.1

We read one real statement to the last row.

Real mandate · Anonymised · Rounded

What went in

A Swiss residential portfolio of several apartment buildings, with a target net rent (Soll-Nettomiete) just under CHF 1m a year. Several annual management statements plus one spreadsheet summary, about 160 pages plus tables. 1 Names were replaced by placeholders before any AI read a file (how the data boundary works).

The verdict

The books were arithmetically clean. Reported profit was still about CHF 33'000 too high, because a mortgage-interest period of about CHF 16'000 and a service-charge provision of about CHF 17'000 were missing. 1

What the owners received

  • 10inefficiencies
  • 7off-market costs and red flags
  • 10optimisation levers, ranked by CHF effect per unit of effort
  • 1ready-to-send demand catalogue for the property manager

Potential found

Secured, recurringSecured
CHF 9'000 to 10'500 per year
Negotiation bandNegotiation
CHF 52'000 to 115'000 per year
ConditionalConditional
up to about CHF 30'000 per year
Recurring, deduplicatedTotal
CHF 60'000 to 155'000 per year 1
Subsidies, tax correctionsOne-off
CHF 51'000 to 192'000 once
Avoided rent reductionsReference rate
CHF 27'000 to 42'000 per year

Six indicators, six lights

  • Red
    Management fees, total8.25% of target rent
    Usual: 4 to 5% of rent for a fully let apartment building 2

    Fees are the one cost line the manager sets for itself.

  • Red
    Service-charge coveragetenants paid about 56% of costs
    Should be close to 100%

    The owners paid costs out of their own yield that the leases allow them to pass on to tenants.

  • Red
    Payouts to ownersabout 134% of profit
    No documentation found

    Paying out more than was earned draws down reserves, and no resolution shows who decided it.

  • Red
    Renovationabout CHF 0.9m over two years
    No documented budget or tender

    Without a budget and competing offers, the owners cannot judge whether the price was right.

  • Red
    Supplier concentrationtop three suppliers 71 to 73% of spend
    Dacide working assumption: amber above 60%, red above 70% without competing offers

    High concentration can be efficient. Only competing offers show whether it is.

  • Green, with a note
    Maintenance39% of net rent, down from 78% the year before
    Running maintenance about 5%

    A swing of that size calls for a multi-year maintenance plan before anyone judges a single year.

None of these findings shows wrongdoing by the manager. Each one is a question the manager now answers in writing, and the verdict grades say how firm each answer has to be. 1

Property Statement Check

Every franc traced to a row.

Computed on this device

Type the figures from your own annual statement. Seven checks run against the benchmarks we use in audits, and every amber or red light comes with the question to send your manager. Leave a field empty if the statement does not show it.

Rent and fees · CHF per year
CHF
CHF
All fees paid to the manager, extras included.
Maintenance · CHF per year
CHF
CHF
Service charges · Nebenkosten
CHF
CHF
Vacancy and cash
CHF
%
CHF
CHF
Profit and payouts
CHF
CHF
Suppliers and renovation
CHF
CHF
CHF

Swiss formats work: 1'234.55, 1’234, 1 234,55.

Result0 red, 0 amber, 0 green of 0 checks
No figures yet. Enter your statement or load the showcase.

    The link contains your figures. Anyone who opens it sees them.

    Show the formula 
    Management fees  M / R    green ≤ 5%   amber 5 to 6.5%*  red > 6.5%*
Service charges  V / C    green ≥ 95%* amber 80 to 95%*  red < 80%*
Vacancy          L / R    context only, national 0.93% (1 June 2026)
Idle cash        K / (O / 12)   amber above 6 months of costs*
Payouts          Pay / P  green ≤ 100%  amber > 100% documented
                          red > 100% not documented
Suppliers        S3 / St  amber > 60%*  red > 70%* without competing offers
Renovation       Rv       red without budget or offers, amber if one is missing
Maintenance      Mr / R   green ≤ 8%*  amber above (light only if Mr given)

* Dacide working assumption, not a market standard

    Fee benchmark: usual 4 to 5% of rent for a fully let apartment building (source 2). Vacancy: BFS, 1 June 2026 (source 5). Every cut-off marked with an asterisk is a Dacide working assumption: the 6.5% fee tolerance, the 95% and 80% coverage bands, idle cash, supplier concentration and running maintenance.

    Have the full booking journal? Run the deterministic red-flag checks on your ledger, in your browser as well.

    05.2.2

    The reference rate moves rents in both directions.

    The Swiss mortgage reference rate (Referenzzinssatz) is 1.25%, published 1 September 2026. The next publication is 1 December 2026. 3

    At today's rate level (below 5%), a 0.25 point rise allows landlords to raise the net rent by at most 3% as a rule (VMWG Art. 13). A 0.25 point fall generally gives tenants a claim to a 2.91% reduction. 4 3

    In the showcase, avoided rent reductions were worth about CHF 27'000 to 42'000 a year. 1 Enter your leases below and move the rate.

    0.93% vacancy is a national average. Your building does not live in the average.

    Swiss vacancy was 0.93% on 1 June 2026 (45'493 empty dwellings, BFS). 5 A national figure averages over every commune in the country. The audit compares each building with its own commune where data exists, so a vacancy loss is judged against the market the flats are let in.

    Reference Rate Simulator

    Move the rate to see each lease change.

    Computed on this device
    0.75%3.50%
    Current rate 1.25%, published 1 September 2026. Next publication 1 December 2026.
    LeasesSample
    Leases: monthly net rent and the reference rate the rent is based on
    #Net rent / monthBased onNew rentRemove
    One lease per line, columns separated by a tab or semicolon. Up to 200 leases.
    Portfolio at the new rate
    Monthly changeCHF 0
    Annual changeCHF 0
    Increase possible0 leases
    Tenants may request a reduction0 leases
    Ignored rows0

    Increases also depend on cost and inflation offsets and on formal notice; reductions must be requested by the tenant. This tool shows the reference-rate component only.

    Annual rent at every rate (table)
    Portfolio annual net rent by reference rate
    Reference rateAnnual rentChange
    Show the formula 
    steps k = (new rate - base rate) / 0.25
k > 0:  factor = 1.03 ^ k          landlord may increase
k < 0:  factor = (1 - 0.0291) ^ |k|  tenant may request a reduction
new rent = rent × factor

    Rule as given in VMWG Art. 13 and by the BWO for rate levels below 5% (sources 3, 4). The slider stays below 5%, so only this rule applies. Increases also depend on cost and inflation offsets and on formal notice; reductions must be requested by the tenant. This tool shows the reference-rate component only.

    05.2.3

    Five waves, one report.

    A real-estate audit run uses 8 to 12 AI agents in total: specialists for cantonal rules, cantonal and federal tax and tax law (plus optional cost and contract specialists), a critic, an auditor and two fact checkers. 1 Step through the run.

    One agent lists every document, period and formula, and writes down what is missing.

    • Inventory and gap agentMissing documents, missing periods, formulas that do not resolve. The gap register goes to every specialist.

    Specialists read the same data in parallel, each in a fresh context.

    • Cantonal specialistThe canton's fees, energy rules and subsidies.
    • Cantonal taxImputed rent, maintenance deduction, property gains tax.
    • Federal tax and VATDirect federal tax, VAT, value-preserving against value-enhancing spend.
    • Tax lawStructure, limitation periods, back-tax and penalty risk.
    • OptionalOperating cost benchmarker, contract and fee analyst, maintenance and supplier analyst.

    A critic and an auditor try to break the specialists' conclusions.

    • CriticAttacks every conclusion.
    • AuditorCompleteness, accruals, the document chain.

    Nothing reaches the report without passing both checks.

    • Fact checker, bookkeepingEvery number traced to its row ID by a deterministic script.
    • Fact checker, lawEvery legal statement checked against its norm: OR, ZGB, VMWG, DBG, StHG, MWSTG and cantonal law.

    One agent writes the report the owners read.

    • IntegratorRemoves double counting, ranks by severity and saving, records where specialists disagreed.

    The report

    1. Management summary with a conservative and a realistic range
    2. Findings by priority, each with evidence, norm and verdict
    3. Red flags
    4. Action plan for 30, 90 and 365 days
    5. Demand catalogue for the manager
    6. Open questions

    Where this breaks.

    1. The audit reads what the manager reported; it cannot inspect the building, the roof or the boiler.
    2. Savings in the negotiation band exist only if someone negotiates them with the manager and suppliers.
    3. It is decision support for owners, not a statutory audit and not tax advice.

    Questions.

    Which documents do we need?

    The annual statements, the ledger or booking journal, the service-charge statements, the rent roll, the management contract, contractor offers and the owners' minutes. Spreadsheets are read twice, once for formulas and once for stored values. Whatever is missing goes into the gap register and becomes a finding of its own.

    Does our manager need to agree?

    The audit works on documents the owners already hold or can request from the manager. It needs no access to the manager's systems. The demand catalogue is written so the manager can answer it point by point.

    Does this work outside one canton?

    The method is parametrised per canton and built for one canton so far. For each further canton, the specialist for fees, energy rules, subsidies and cantonal tax is rebuilt before it runs a mandate there.

    How often should it run?

    Once a year, when the statement arrives. Stable row IDs make each year comparable with the last, so single findings become trends. Where the method goes next.

    Sources.

    1. Dacide internal work product, anonymised.INT
    2. UBS Switzerland. Guide on managing an apartment building. Accessed 8 October 2026.PO
    3. Federal Office for Housing (BWO). Hypothekarischer Referenzzinssatz (mortgage reference rate). 2026.WE
    4. Swiss Federal Council. Verordnung über die Miete und Pacht von Wohn- und Geschäftsräumen (VMWG), Art. 13. Fedlex.WE
    5. Federal Statistical Office (BFS). Leerwohnungszählung, 1 June 2026. 2026. 45'493 empty dwellingsWE
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