Terms of use

1. Scope and parties

These Terms govern use of homehunt.ch (the “Platform”) operated by IBEX PROPERTIES SA (“IBEX”, “we”). They apply to all users: persons searching (“Seekers”), persons or businesses publishing listings (“Advertisers”), and visitors. By using the Platform you accept these Terms. Separate written agreements may apply to Advertisers and to paid services and prevail over these Terms where they conflict.

2. What the Platform is, and what it is not

The Platform lets users search and publish advertisements for the sale and rental of real estate in Switzerland, and offers related services (search alerts, a mortgage inquiry service, a property-valuation inquiry service, editorial content).

• For third-party listings, IBEX acts as a host/intermediary platform only. We are not the seller, landlord, or broker of those objects and are not party to any resulting contract between Seeker and the Advertiser or its principal.
• For listings expressly marked as IBEX mandates, IBEX acts as real-estate broker/agent for the owner. Brokerage is governed by OR Art. 412 ff (SR 220) and our LFid duties; commission is owed by, and agreed with, the principal (see §10).
• A listing, a saved object, an inquiry, or any online “reservation” is never a binding contract of sale. Sale of Swiss real estate requires a public deed (OR Art. 216, SR 220). Nothing on the Platform constitutes an offer in the legal sense, a public deed, or a substitute for one.

3. Accounts

Seekers may create a free account for searches, saved searches and alerts. You must provide accurate data, keep credentials confidential, and are responsible for activity under your account. We may suspend or close accounts for breach, misuse, or as required by law. Minimum age 18.

4. Advertiser obligations (listing content)

Advertisers are solely responsible for the legality and accuracy of their listings and warrant that each listing:

• states the actual price payable in CHF and handles “from” prices, charges and, for rentals, ancillary costs (Nebenkosten) transparently, with no misleading or bait pricing (PBV/OIP, SR 942.211; UWG Art. 3, SR 241);
• is accurate and not misleading as to surface area (and whether net/Nettowohnfläche or gross), room count, condition, “renovated/new”, photos (which must depict the actual object; no stock or unrelated images presented as the property), and any “sunny/quiet/lake-view” type claim (UWG Art. 3(1)(b));
• includes any legally required disclosures for the object's canton, in particular the building energy certificate (GEAK/CECB/CECE) where the canton requires it on sale/advertising, and for rentals the correct treatment of ancillary costs and, where the canton mandates it, the official initial-rent form (Art. 270 CO + cantonal activation; VMWG SR 221.213.11, incl. previous reference interest rate and CPI);
• does not misstate buyer eligibility where Lex Koller (BewG, SR 211.412.41) or Lex Weber / second homes (SR 702) are relevant;
• correctly describes the legal object (plot, co-ownership share, Stockwerkeigentum/PPE per ZGB Art. 712a, easements) where applicable;
• discloses the Advertiser's identity and, for professional agents, any cantonally required licence.

5. What “verified” means

“Verified” on the Platform currently means only that our team has manually reviewed the account before allowing it to publish, checking the information the account holder provided (such as name, contact details and, for professional accounts, the business behind them) for plausibility. It does not mean that we have verified the person's identity documents, that the advertiser owns or is entitled to market the property, that the property exists or is available, or that the listing's price, surface area, photos or other details are accurate. It is not a guarantee against fraud. Users should still take normal precautions: in particular, never pay a deposit or fee before viewing a property and confirming the counterparty. We may strengthen our verification over time (for example with one-time-code checks of a Swiss mobile phone number); the meaning of any “verified” label will always reflect the checks actually performed at the time.

6. Labels, price ranges, closed deals and market figures

Some information next to a listing or on a profile is produced by the Platform, not written by the Advertiser. It describes activity on the Platform or public statistics. It is not our assessment of a property, of its price or of its Advertiser.

• “Sponsored” means paid placement. Where the feature is offered, an Advertiser who manages a live listing can buy sponsored visibility for it as a one-off purchase covering a fixed period, shown with its price and end date before payment (see §9). For the whole period the listing carries the “Sponsored” label on its own page and on every listing card that shows it (search results, profiles, the home page), and is shown ahead of listings that are not sponsored in the default search order; when a visitor chooses another order, such as price or size, the results follow that order. Sponsorship does not change the listing's content, our review of it or the Advertiser's obligations under §4. It has no effect on “In demand”: visits during a sponsored period, and the inquiries received on those days, are left out of that calculation, and a sponsored listing does not show “In demand” while the period runs.
• “In demand” marks a listing among the most requested listings of its kind in its canton on the Platform. It is calculated automatically from the inquiries and visits a live listing receives on the Platform, compared with similar listings (same canton, same offer type and same property type) that have been online for a minimum period. It is shown only in a group large enough to compare, and only with a minimum number of inquiries from different people. Each visitor is counted at most once a day per listing, and one network address adds only a limited number of visitors to a listing a day; visits by the Advertiser, its team, our staff and recognisable automated programs are not counted. The label reflects interest on the Platform only: it is not a judgement of the quality, value, price or condition of a property, and a listing without it is not judged negatively.
• Price ranges. For a property for sale, an Advertiser may show a price range instead of an exact price. The exact price remains the default, a rental always shows its exact rent, and no listing can be published without a price or a range. A range may be no wider than the maximum stated in the listing form, measured from its lower end. A range is a price statement of the Advertiser like any other and is subject to §4. Sorting by price and maximum-price filters use the lower end of the range.
• Closed deals. An Advertiser can record a listing as rented or sold only by naming a registered user who sent an inquiry about that listing through the Platform, and only if that person confirms. The person named is asked by email and in their account; opening the link records nothing, only an explicit answer does, and the listing is not shown in search while the answer is awaited. If you are named and did not rent or buy the property, answer that it was not you. A confirmed closure is then reviewed by our team, which may approve or reject it; a rejection is explained to the Advertiser. An approved closure ends the listing for good. The Advertiser's public profile may show the number of approved closures and the average time to close once a minimum number is reached; it never shows a price. A final price declared by the Advertiser is optional and never published. Our review checks plausibility on the basis of the information available to us; a recorded closure is not proof that a contract was concluded or on what terms.
• Market figures. Listings for sale may show a box with official and open statistics about the area: the residential property price index for the type of commune and the commune's population published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, and public transport works under construction nearby as mapped by OpenStreetMap contributors. Each figure states its source and period. These are general statistics for an area or a category of commune, taken from third parties and possibly incomplete or out of date. They are not a valuation, estimate or forecast of the value of any property and must not be relied on as such.

7. Our review of listings

We may (but are not obliged to) review, refuse, edit, suspend or remove listings that breach these Terms or the law. Performing a review does not make us responsible for listing content and does not transfer the Advertiser's responsibility to us.

8. Prohibited use

No unlawful, misleading, discriminatory or infringing content; no scraping, bulk extraction, reverse engineering, or republication of Platform content without our written consent; no circumventing fees; no uploading of third parties' personal data or images without a legal basis.

9. Fees

Prices are shown including 8.1% Swiss VAT (the price actually payable, per PBV/OIP SR 942.211).

Listings: launch period. Until 30 September 2026, all listings are published free of charge for every account.

Listings: from 1 October 2026. A private account keeps 3 active objects free, on an ongoing basis. An account we have approved as an agency keeps 50 active objects free. Above that free allowance, an approved agency can add capacity with a monthly plan costing CHF 1.00 per additional active object per month (incl. VAT), sold in steps of 10, 50 and 250 objects. Only approved agencies can buy a plan: a private account is never charged, it is invited to become an agency instead. Fees are billed to the account holder.

Plans renew monthly, and you can stop them at any time. A plan is a monthly subscription that renews automatically on the same day each month until you cancel it. Cancelling takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for, and the extra objects stay available to you until then. There is no fixed-term commitment, no notice period, no cancellation fee and no forfeiture of pre-paid amounts (consistent with UWG Art. 8 and OR Art. 160-163). Payment is handled by Stripe; see the Privacy notice.

Sponsored visibility. Where offered, an Advertiser can pay for sponsored visibility of a live listing it manages (see §6). It is a one-off payment for a fixed number of consecutive days, with the total price and the end date shown before payment: it is not a subscription, nothing renews and nothing further is charged. Buying again while a period is running adds the new days after that period. The period is not suspended or extended if the listing goes offline in the meantime. Payment is handled by Stripe; if a payment is refunded in full, or reversed after a chargeback (a payment dispute decided against us), the sponsored days it paid for that have not yet elapsed are withdrawn. Deleting the listing ends its sponsored period, and the days left are not refunded.

Vouchers. We may issue voucher codes that add active-object capacity to an approved agency account permanently and free of charge. Voucher capacity stacks on top of the free allowance and of any plan.

If your capacity falls. If a plan ends and you have more active objects than your remaining allowance, the excess is archived automatically: listings inside a sponsored visibility period stay online before the others, and among the rest the most recently published are archived first. Archived listings are not deleted and can go live again as soon as capacity is available.

Consumer (buyer/renter) features: always free. Searching, saving searches, instant and daily match alerts, creating an account, and contacting listers are free. We never charge buyers or renters to access listings or to contact a lister. Mortgage pre-checks and financing inquiries, where offered, are free to the consumer.

Optional paid consumer feature. A detailed property valuation can be prepared by accredited third-party partners. The partner contracts with and invoices you directly and sets its own price; homehunt does not set or collect that price. homehunt may receive a referral fee of up to 30% from the partner; we disclose this referral arrangement to you. Where IBEX also acts as your broker for the same property, we additionally observe the conflict-of-interest and loyalty duties of a fiduciario immobiliare (LFid art. 14).

Possible future feature: priority access. We may in future offer an optional paid feature that gives subscribers earlier access to selected listings (for example, release of a lister's contact details a set number of days before they are released to other users). If introduced, the total price (incl. VAT), what the feature includes, and any renewal and cancellation terms will be shown clearly before purchase; the feature will never restrict a consumer's ability to view standard listings or to contact a lister free of charge; and any earlier release of an advertiser's contact details will only occur where that advertiser has agreed to it.

10. IBEX as broker; commission and conflicts

Where IBEX acts as broker (objects marked as IBEX mandates), commission is governed by the brokerage contract with the principal (OR Art. 412 ff). We disclose any double-brokerage or material conflict of interest and act with the diligence and loyalty required of a fiduciario immobiliare under LFid (RL 953.100, art. 13-14), including keeping any client funds in segregated accounts.

11. Mortgage and valuation services

The valuation report is provided by an accredited third-party partner, not by IBEX, as described in §9. The mortgage pre-check / financing-inquiry feature is free to you; we do not currently work with a financing partner, so where the feature is offered it is informational only and your data is not passed to any third party until and unless we engage a partner and tell you so. None of these services is independent financial, investment, tax or legal advice, a credit promise, or a binding valuation. If we later engage a partner, that partner's own terms and privacy notice will apply, you will be informed before any data is transmitted, and we will disclose any referral fee.

12. Intellectual property

The Platform, its software, design, database, trademarks and editorial content are protected and remain IBEX's (or its licensors') property. Personal, non-commercial browsing is permitted; any other use needs our prior written consent. Advertisers grant IBEX a licence to display and promote their listing content on and in connection with the Platform.

13. Availability and changes

We aim for high availability but do not guarantee uninterrupted, error-free operation. We may modify or discontinue features and may amend these Terms; the version in force is the one published here, and material changes will be signalled appropriately.

14. Liability

To the extent permitted by law, IBEX is not liable for: the accuracy, legality or availability of third-party listings; decisions taken on the basis of Platform content; third-party services and external links; or indirect/consequential loss. Mandatory liability (including for unlawful intent or gross negligence, and any non-excludable consumer protections) is unaffected.

15. Data protection

Processing of personal data is described in the Privacy notice, which forms part of these Terms.

16. Applicable law and forum

Swiss law applies. Place of jurisdiction is the competent court at the seat of IBEX PROPERTIES SA (Pretura del Distretto di Mendrisio), subject to any mandatory forum a consumer is entitled to (e.g. domicile) under the Swiss Civil Procedure Code and the Lugano Convention. Tenancy disputes fall to the competent cantonal conciliation authority (autorità di conciliazione / Schlichtungsbehörde).