An interesting article by Tom FELBER in the NZZ dated September 2, 2026, which reports on the conviction of a sublessor for fraud (Art. 146 of the Swiss Criminal Code) by criminal order in Zurich.

The criminal authority found that the landlord had been misled regarding the actual occupancy of the apartment under circumstances that made it difficult to verify this due to the obligation to respect the tenant’s privacy.

A Lucrative Business with Subtenants

A recipient of a disability pension rented out his apartment to several people for years and profited from it. For at least three and a half years, everything went smoothly: the tenant of an apartment in Zurich’s Kreis 5 had found a lucrative side business for himself and was making a profit by not living in the rented apartment himself, but by subletting the rooms to three subtenants at the same time—without the landlord’s knowledge. In total, he rented out the apartment for more than he was paying himself. This 59-year-old disability pensioner, originally from Sri Lanka, has now been convicted of fraud by a summary judgment. According to the final criminal order from the Zurich-Limmat Public Prosecutor’s Office, to which the NZZ had access, the defendant signed a lease for the apartment in Zurich’s Kreis 5 in September 2017. The lease agreement stipulated a maximum occupancy of two people and expressly prohibited subletting. The rent amounted to 1,439 francs per month.

False Answers

The landlord had suspected for some time that his tenant was not actually living in the apartment himself. But it was not until September 2024 that he wrote him a letter. He asked his tenant to inform him, within ten days of receiving the letter, who was actually living in the apartment and whether any sublease agreements existed. The defendant falsely replied that he had been living in the apartment with another man for several years, but that the man was not a subtenant. The subsequent criminal investigation revealed a very different set of facts: from approximately April 2018 to April 2021, three of the tenant’s compatriots were living in the apartment. Each of them paid him 650 francs. Thus, the defendant received a monthly income of 1,950 francs. He therefore made a monthly profit of 511 francs thanks to his undeclared subtenants. This amount exceeded the actual rent by 35.5 percent. During a second, shorter period, from September 2022 to March 2023, three subtenants paid him a total of 1,650 francs, which was still 14.7% more than the actual rent. According to the criminal order, the defendant thus made a total profit of 19,662 francs to which he was not entitled, even though he himself lived elsewhere. Through his conduct, the tenant misled the landlord regarding the actual conditions of use of the apartment, the criminal order states. This causal error on the part of the landlord led, throughout all those years, to the landlord failing to take the measures provided by law to recover the unduly received payments.

Admitted Deception

The defendant acted intentionally, with the aim of financial gain, and also acted in a deliberately deceptive manner by providing a false response to the letter: the actual use of the apartment could only be verified by the landlord with considerable effort. The landlord’s ability to monitor the situation was limited, as the primary tenant’s privacy is protected and the landlord may neither visit the apartment nor conduct unannounced inspections without a specific reason. The 59-year-old tenant was convicted of fraud and sentenced to a suspended fine of 120 daily fines of 60 francs each, totaling 7,200 francs. The execution of the sentence is suspended for a two-year probationary period. However, the defendant must pay a fine of 1,000 francs and 1,600 francs in court costs, for a total of 2,600 francs. Any civil claims are not mentioned in the criminal order.