Rent calculator for MV Switzerland
Online platform
digital/organizing has developed a rent calculator for the Tenants' Association.
Tenants can use the calculator to check whether the rent increase is justified, even without any legal knowledge. The calculator also provides assistance if an objection is worthwhile.
We have developed a user-friendly rent calculator with the tenants' association in view of the increase in the reference interest rate in 2023.
With the rent calculator, the tenants' association was well prepared for the rush of inquiries and was able to answer almost 30,000 inquiries automatically in the first week.
The tenants' association was able to use the information about the rent increases in the media several times and was given the opportunity to position itself as an organization in numerous reports and to disseminate its own positions on the subject of rents.
The Tenants' Association was able to generate several thousand new addresses, which were then served with an appeal for membership.
The initial situation
In 2023, the Swiss-wide reference interest rate for rents rose for the first time since its introduction in 2008. It was expected in advance that this trend reversal would lead to rising rents. Together with rising energy costs, health insurance premiums and inflation, this threatened to significantly increase the burden on households once again.
As expected, many landlords took the opportunity to increase the rent - and often demanded more than is legally permitted. The tenants' association anticipated in advance that it would not be possible to cope with the onslaught with the existing resources in the budget. The Tenants' Association of German-speaking Switzerland (MVD) was therefore looking for a solution to help tenants defend themselves.
In order to relieve the MVD and help the users, this solution had to be
Despite the complexity of the topic, it should also be usable for users without knowledge of tenancy law.
The system automatically assesses the rent increase and offers a proposal for action, including support in the event of a possible challenge to the increase.
take into account the different advisory strategies and approaches of the 13 sections of the MVD and the different practices of several dozen arbitration boards throughout German-speaking Switzerland.
largely developed with resources outside the association, but nevertheless integrated into the MVD's IT environment.
and last but not least - as it had to be assumed in November 2022 that the increase in the reference interest rate would be decided on March 1, 2023 - be ready for use just three months after the initial meeting.
Approach
At the beginning, the expectations of the product from the perspective of the users and the sections of the tenants' association were established on the basis of discussions with experts. These made it possible to define a procedure in which the tight schedule could be adhered to and a clear and binding budget ceiling could be set. A project organization was important for this, in which the work was largely outsourced to digital/organizing and input and decisions from the MVD could only be collected via clearly defined channels.
Implementation
The implementation took place in three phases:
The first phase involved checking the plausibility of the content of a complex process such as checking the correctness of rent increases - with many changing framework conditions - to see whether it could be automated in a meaningful way at all.
The translation of the process was then transferred into a clickable prototype, which the MVD experts and the sections could use to assess the process and test the computer for its practical suitability with real cases.
Finally, the solution was implemented technically and graphically and the UX was refined. At the same time, we ensured that all technical interfaces to the tenants' association's IT infrastructure worked.
Solution
The rent calculator runs in its own environment at mzr.mieterverband.ch. In just a few steps, a tenant can check a rent increase using the rent calculator. Great importance was attached to making user guidance as simple as possible. Where necessary, users can view sample documents or receive explanations.
The calculator uses the zip code to assign the correct section of the tenants' association and the arbitration board responsible for a dispute. This makes it possible to take into account the different advisory strategies of the sections - for example, how aggressively they advise contestation - as well as the current practice of the arbitration board. Based on the general conditions and the increase, the rent calculator makes a statement about the rent increase and - depending on the advice strategy - gives a direct recommendation to contest or a neutral presentation of the rent increase.
In the final step, personalized letters of objection that meet all formal requirements for registered letters and a "user manual" for the next steps are sent to the user as a PDF. When the documents are handed over to the user, the process is transferred from the external platform to the MVD's IT infrastructure and a user journey begins, which accompanies the tenant through the objection process and, last but not least, also addresses the advantages of membership in the tenants' association.
