Advice on transactions, taxes, duties, and law for the real estate industry
Get clarity and guidance on tax and legal issues
We provide comprehensive advice on taxes, duties, and legal issues across the entire real estate life cycle.
Our experts are well-versed in current legal and tax developments that affect your properties. We offer comprehensive advice on all relevant aspects, including:
- Transaction consulting
- Added value determination and added value levy
- Tax aspects incl. fees and charges
- Easement valuation
- Value compensation for special land use planning and expropriations
- Valuation of external impacts on real estate
- Expert opinions for courts and transaction stakeholders
Our services
Transaction consulting
You can rely on our decades of broad experience advising on real estate transactions. Transaction success requires a team with a wide range of specialist disciplines, and our experts are here to prepare both national and international property transactions (purchases and sales) as well as carry out detailed property analyses so you are optimally equipped throughout the process.
- Coordination of advisory services for buyers and sellers
- Agenda setting
- Formation of expert teams, including specialist selection
- Sales documentation preparation
- Data room setup
- Due diligence organization and implementation
- Individual transactions involving investment properties, development projects, and larger plots of building land
- Sale-and-leaseback arrangements
- Physical subdivision of property
- Portfolio transactions
- Sales of real estate companies (share deals)
- Initial public offerings (IPOs)
- Contributions in kind (asset swaps)
Added value determination and added value levy
In the case of real estate, added value is created through planning measures. We assess and calculate the added value levy for municipalities and cantons under the Swiss Spatial Planning Act (RPG) and support you in the levy process for your private investment as required.
Holistic support for investors in added-value levy processes.
Regional market knowledge, regulations, and project-specific characteristics are taken into account, enabling balanced evaluation and development solutions for all parties.
Together with Häusermann + Partner, Wüest Partner has developed a digital platform for Switzerland that provides tools for calculating value-added levies and answering frequently asked legal and procedural questions.
Added value compensation is an integral part of spatial planning. Wüest Partner has developed a reliable methodology for calculating added value.
This approach enables the precise assessment of individual projects, sites, and properties through project- and site-specific evaluations. For the public sector, our calculation model serves as a reliable, independent, and binding basis for determining value-added levies.
We prepare strategic stock and demand assessments for public-sector clients, which serve to quantify future land needs.
The estimation of additional demand is based on comparing the extent of existing building zone areas with future land requirements. On this basis, we develop solution strategies to provide the necessary areas and evaluate potential for densification and conversion as required.
Our model calculations allow us to forecast the potential added value that municipalities or cantons can expect from zoning changes, upzoning, or rezoning.
The public sector can use these calculations for local planning revisions and financial planning.
Advice and calculations on all relevant tax types and subsidies
Taxes play a key role in all transactions in the real estate sector. Particularly in the case of portfolio transactions and company transfers, there is usually plenty of scope for optimization. We clarify your questions, help you gain an overview of Switzerland’s federal tax landscape, and calculate the expected tax consequences as well as any tax burdens that may be transferred to the buyer.
Additionally, we assess how measures such as energy-efficient renovations could help you benefit from potential subsidies or tax reliefs.
- Property tax (levied in approx. 50% of cantons)
- Property gains tax (relevant across all cantons)
- Property transfer tax (levied in approx. 50% of cantons)
- Notarial and land registry fees (transactions, easement entries, and mortgage certificates)
- VAT for opted properties
- Direct taxes on rental income and real estate gains (federal, cantonal, municipal, and church taxes)
Learn about our consulting services:
Valuation of easements
We advise you on all aspects of neighboring building rights, residential rights, and transfers of use and provide an overview of any fees for the establishment of easements.
Value compensation for special land use planning and expropriations
We advise you on various issues surrounding value adjustments and expropriations. We support you competently with our many years of expertise in land use transfers and reallocations, land swap procedures, and expropriations.
External impact valuation
We analyze the influence of external factors (such as noise, high-voltage power lines, mobile phone antennas, obstructed views, etc.) on the market value of properties and calculate the reduction in value using our comprehensive database.
Expert opinions for courts and transaction stakeholders
We act as appraisers in complex valuation matters and support you in real estate transactions.
Tap into the comprehensive advisory expertise of the Wüest Partner Group
We offer support on strategies, processes, and models, site and project development, transactions, taxes, duties, and laws, education and communication, performance audits, analyses, and studies.
