The value quota in Swiss condominium ownership — what the register holds, and what it never measured
In short: your value quota — 37/1000, say — is a share of the property's value, not of its floor area. It is set once in the constitutive deed, can only be changed with the consent of everyone directly affected, and it decides what share of the community's costs you carry every month. This page gives you the statute verbatim for every claim and tells you where to read your own quota.
This page explains a land-register entry. It is not legal or tax advice. For a specific quota, constitutive deed or community bylaw, consult a Swiss notary or lawyer.
The five provisions this page rests on
Every claim below rests on one of these sentences, taken word for word from the English text published on Fedlex. You do not have to take our summary on trust — each reference opens the article itself.
Why this number is so often misread
A value quota looks like a share of floor space, so that is how people read it: 37 out of 1000, so 3.7% of the building, so — and this is where the reasoning slips — 3.7% of the square metres. The statute says something else, and it says it in one word: share of the value. Once you have seen that, you read your service-charge statement, your bylaws and your purchase contract differently.
A share of value, not of area
The constitutive deed must state each unit's share «of the value of the property» — as a fraction over a common denominator. Not of the volume, not of the floor area, not of the room count: of the value. The valuation behind the split typically weighs position in the building, sunlight, view, layout and the ancillary rooms allocated to the unit — exactly the things that make two equally large flats unequally expensive. Two units of identical size can therefore carry very different quotas. That is not an error; it is the point of the number.
Source: Swiss Civil Code art. 712e (Fedlex) · Glossary: land register
Set once, and after that effectively immovable
Condominium ownership comes into being only through entry in the land register, and the quotas are fixed in the constitutive deed — as a rule by the developer, before the first flat is sold. Any later change requires the consent of everyone directly affected plus the approval of the owners' assembly. The statute grants a right to correction only where the quota was set in error or has become wrong through structural alterations. So do not count on shifting a quota that strikes you as unfavourable.
What the quota costs every month
The quota is not a formality: it is what divides the money. Contributions to the burdens of the common property and to the costs of common administration are owed «in proportion to the value of their shares»: ongoing maintenance, repairs, renewals, the administrator's fee, levies and taxes imposed on the community as a whole. Payments into the renewal fund and, in many sets of bylaws, voting weight in the assembly follow it too. Ten points of extra quota means ten per mille more on every common invoice, every year, for as long as you own the flat.
When a common part is of no benefit to a unit
The statute makes its own exception to allocation by value quota, and it states it as a duty: «Where specific parts of the building, fittings or installations are of little or no benefit to certain condominium owners, the allocation of shared costs must take this into account.» That is not a permission. It applies whether or not the bylaws say anything about it, and it turns on the thing itself — whether the installation benefits the unit, the lift for a ground-floor flat, the garage for an owner with no space in it — not on how much anyone uses it.
At heating and hot water, a second body of law reaches the bill
The heating and hot-water bill is not the Civil Code's alone. The federal Energy Act obliges the cantons to issue rules on consumption-based billing of heating and hot water. Fedlex publishes that Act in German, French, Italian and Romansh only — there is no official English version — so the German text is the text: «die verbrauchsabhängige Heiz- und Warmwasserkostenabrechnung bei Neubauten und bei wesentlichen Erneuerungen bestehender Gebäude». Where such a cantonal rule applies it is public law: it does not sit in the bylaws, and the assembly cannot vote it away. What applies to your building is in your canton's energy act — not in the Civil Code and not in the bylaws.
Source: Energy Act art. 45 para. 3 (Fedlex, German — no official English version)
What a quota table looks like — and what is missing from it
Here is how an invented 19-unit building divides over a common denominator of 1000: 13, 22, 28, 31, 34, 36, 38, 41, 43, 45, 47, 49, 52, 55, 58, 62, 71, 84 and 191 — exactly 1000, because the sum has to be. The figures are made up and belong to no real building. What stands out is what such a table never contains: for none of the 19 units a square-metre figure, a living area or a room count. The constitutive deed states each unit's spatial delimitation and its share of value; such an extract from the main book carries no square-metre figure.
A quota cannot be converted into square metres
There is no conversion factor, and we do not offer one. Between value and area sits everything that makes one flat dearer or cheaper than its neighbour; a quota divided by 1000 and multiplied by the building's area yields a number that looks precise and is not. If you need an area, take it from where it was actually measured or reported — and first check which rule was used, because Switzerland has several.
Source: Swiss Civil Code art. 712e (Fedlex) · Guide: how Switzerland measures a home — four official answers
Where to read your quota — and why we do not fetch it
Without showing an interest, any person may obtain the designation and description of the property, the owner's identity, and the form and date of acquisition. The value quota belongs to the description of the unit and is obtainable that way from the competent land registry — one property at a time, on request. We cannot pull it automatically: the Land Register Ordinance requires cantonal information systems to be queryable only per property and to be protected against serial queries. An alpflo brief therefore carries no value quota. It shows you the public registers for the address — and this page shows you where to order the rest yourself.
Source: Swiss Civil Code art. 970 (Fedlex) · Land register · Zurich · Land register · Bern · Land register · Aargau · Land register · Solothurn · Land register · Valais · Land register · Vaud · Land register · Fribourg
What the bylaws say is not in the statute
Alongside the quota, the community's bylaws govern daily life. Any owner may require that bylaws on administration and use be drawn up and noted in the land register, and it is there that exclusive-use rights are allocated. Read both before you buy — quota and bylaws — because only together do they tell you what the flat costs to run.
The four honesty states
The quota, the bylaws and cantonal energy law all sit outside what we query — you obtain the quota from the land registry and the bylaws from the administrator. For everything an alpflo brief does provide we make the provenance visible: every field carries exactly one of these four states.
Confirmed in an official Swiss register. Direct source.
Register queried; nothing on this parcel. The absence is documented.
Derived from a model or an API: real, but not directly from the register. Please verify.
Hit an edge case. Stated honestly at the boundary, never silently discarded.
Common questions about the value quota
Is the value quota a share of floor area?
No. The constitutive deed states the share of the property's value. Two flats of the same size can carry different quotas.
Can I have my value quota changed?
As a rule, no. A change needs the consent of everyone directly affected plus the owners' assembly's approval. A right to correction exists only where the quota was set in error or structural alterations have made it wrong.
What is the quota actually used for?
To split the community's burdens and administration costs — maintenance, repairs, renewals, the administrator's fee, levies imposed on the community — and, in many bylaws, to set renewal-fund payments and voting weight.
Does an alpflo brief show my value quota?
No. We do not query the land register's main book, and the ordinance expressly requires protection against serial queries. You obtain the quota from the competent land registry, for one specific property.
The value quota comes from the land registry. What the public registers hold for an address — parcel, PLR cadastre, building data — you can see first in the free sample brief and then in your own.
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