Selling property in Menzingen: one of the oldest building stocks

For Menzingen, no official figure states a typical house price. Unlike the Canton of Zurich, which publishes median prices for each municipality, Zug has none. Portal figures fill that gap poorly: they lump houses of very different ages and sizes into one number.

What the federal statistics do count is the building stock. 340 of the 803 buildings with residential use in Menzingen are single-family houses, or 42.3 per cent. The weighted cantonal figure is 40.1 per cent. That puts Menzingen at rank 5 of 11. These figures describe the stock, not a price.

The price of your house is set by location, land and building, and each of them is valued separately. That is exactly what the house valuation and the flat valuation deliver, resting on comparable sales nearby, year of construction and condition included. So ask pointedly for the derivation behind every figure you are given. The free assessment puts a price range on paper, together with the reasoning behind it.

Your return sets the tax rate, not Menzingen's tax multiplier, and the length of ownership caps it. The gain as a percentage of the investment costs, meaning purchase price plus documented investments, is divided by the years of ownership. That gives the rate for the whole gain, between 10 and 60 per cent (§ 199 Zug Tax Act).

The ceiling falls by 2.5 percentage points a year from the 12th year of ownership. After 25 years it stays fixed at 25 per cent. The municipality of Menzingen assesses it, with no surcharge.

Gains below CHF 5,000 are not taxed. You may deduct documented value-enhancing investments from the gain, but not ordinary maintenance. Replacing the home you live in with a new one in Switzerland, usually within two years, defers the tax. What counts is how much of the proceeds you reinvest. The tax is postponed, not waived. Even a return under 10 per cent a year is taxed at 10 per cent. The cantonal calculator gives your own figure.

No property transfer tax exists in Zug. In its place comes a fee from the Land Registry and Geoinformation Office, charged by time spent: CHF 180 an hour, with every quarter-hour begun counting in full.

For a sale, this fee is multiplied by 4 for the portion up to CHF 6,000; anything above counts without the factor. By law, the parties split it equally unless the contract says otherwise, and each is liable to the office for the full amount. Menzingen, like every Zug municipality, is served by the office at Aabachstrasse 5 in Zug.

As a rule, the purchase contract is notarised by the municipal clerk of Menzingen, that is the municipal notary's office. Lawyers in private practice may not notarise an ordinary house purchase in Zug. The cantonal tariff sets CHF 300 to 4,000 for it, with a surcharge if it takes more than an hour. In short, you pay fees, not a tax calculated as a percentage of the price.