The Zurich district of Röntgenareal is now crossed by a termination gap: a third of the tenants must leave the premises, the other residents can stay. The reason: not all heirs of the former owner manage their assets in the same way.
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Out of nowhere, hundreds of Zurich residents received their housing canceled at the beginning of the week. This concerns 105 tenants of Neugasse 81, 83 and 85, who will have to leave the premises by the end of March 2025. The reason given by the management Allgood Property AG is the owners’ wish to subject the buildings to a total renovation.
What is striking about these terminations is that only three houses out of the nine in the district 5, known as “Röntgenareal”, are affected. Those who live in the other six houses are lucky. The reason: the heirs of the former owner Leopold Bachmann follow different approaches in the management of their real estate, as the “Tages-Anzeiger” reports.
An heiress does everything differently
The “Sugus buildings” were built in the late 1990s by Leopold Bachmann. The entrepreneur wanted to create affordable housing for people with low incomes, for families with children and for foreigners. Until the end, rents in the city were advantageous compared to Zurich standards: for a four and a half room apartment, you had to pay 2,000 francs.
After Bachmann’s death in 2021, two sons and a daughter each inherited three of the houses. The tenants of the houses Bachmann’s daughter inherited have been given their leave. It had already changed management during the summer. While his brothers’ houses continue to be managed by Simo Immobilien, the Zug-based company Allgood Property AG has taken over management of Bachmann’s daughter’s houses.
According to “Watson”, it is the entrepreneur Goran Zeindler who is behind this company. He is said to have started several real estate and construction businesses in recent years, all of which went bankrupt. Some of them were so indebted that bankruptcy proceedings had to be abandoned “for lack of assets”.
The need for sanitation could be a pretext
Allgood Property AG justifies the mass cancellations to the “Tages-Anzeiger” by the fact that the houses must “imperatively be thoroughly renovated” in order to orient them towards a “sustainable and ecological future”. The tenants dispute this argument and suspect the new owner of bringing forward the renovation to be able to increase the yield.
The owners of the other six “Sugus buildings” also do not see the need for a total renovation. “The buildings, apartments and environment are in good condition,” says Sigmund Bachmann.
According to him, there are no plans to change the quality of housing or financial accessibility. The fact that Sigmund Bachmann has promised to give priority to terminated “Sugus” tenants when an apartment becomes available in his buildings is little consolation for the tenants concerned. Because this happens very rarely.
Even if they quickly organized themselves and wanted, with the support of the Zurich tenants’ association, to take legal action against the termination, the 105 terminated tenants have no other choice but to seek at the same time a new home. Neighbors and friends will no doubt soon become competitors in Zurich’s very tight housing market.
