What does a property management do? Tasks, duties and scope of services

The three areas of property management

In Switzerland the management of a property is divided into three areas: commercial, technical and administrative management. A full mandate covers all three, so that owners no longer have to deal with anything themselves. Below is what each area involves.

Commercial management

Commercial management is the financial backbone. It includes rent collection and dunning, ongoing bookkeeping, the annual utility-cost statement, budgeting and clear reporting to the owner, as well as permissible rent adjustments, for instance in response to a change in the reference interest rate. This is where it is decided whether a property runs in a financially sound and transparent way.

Important: the financial back office, that is collection, dunning, accounting and the utility-cost statement, is part of every serious full mandate and is not a chargeable extra. If a provider bills these core services separately, it is worth asking precisely.

Technical management

Technical management keeps the property functional and maintains its value. It covers ongoing maintenance and upkeep, the coordination of repairs and tradespeople, the handling of damage claims with insurers, and the property inspection and handover at tenant changes. The goal is long-term value preservation without unnecessary costs.

Administrative management

Administrative management covers correspondence and tenancies: drafting and managing rental agreements, letting and organising tenant changes, communication with tenants and authorities, processing notices and representing the owner. A good management is above all one thing here: reachable.

Which duties are governed by law

Full mandate or partial mandate?

With a full mandate the management takes over the entire operation, commercially, technically and administratively. With a partial mandate only individual areas are delegated, for instance only the letting or only the billing. For most owners who want to save time and effort the full mandate is the simplest solution, because everything comes from a single source, even for a single property.

How to recognise a good management

The statutory core is similar everywhere. The difference lies in the service.

• Reliable availability instead of waiting queues
• Fast re-letting that avoids vacancies
• Full transparency without hidden mark-ups on tradespeople or insurance invoices
• Clear reporting for the owner
• Modern, digital processing

This is exactly where a good management separates itself from an average one.

Special case: rooms, flatshares and co-living

For individually let rooms, flatshares and co-living the workload multiplies because re-letting is not a one-off event per apartment but a permanent state. This requires specialised management.

For details on costs, see the guide "What does property management cost?". To calculate how management and vacancy affect your return, use the yield calculator.

More on this in the related guide: Have rooms, flatshares or co-living managed in Switzerland