Types of clearance
Business Clearance
Also known as: Office clearance · Commercial clearance · Business closure · Betriebsauflösung
A business clearance is the complete clearing and resale of a commercial operation, including furniture, machinery, stock, IT and archived files. It differs from an apartment clearance through its resale potential, its data protection obligations and its usually tighter deadlines.
What comes up during a business clearance
The scope depends heavily on the sector. An office consists essentially of furniture, IT, archives and kitchen equipment. A workshop brings machines, tools, raw material and often hazardous waste. A retail shop has shop fittings, stock, till systems and signage. A restaurant has commercial kitchen equipment, refrigeration, furniture and tableware.
Almost always, dismantling is part of the job as well: removing signage, taking down partition walls, lifting floor coverings, removing cable installations. What exactly is required is written in the commercial lease — often the tenant owes restoration to the original condition (Rückbau in den ursprünglichen Zustand).
Data protection is an obligation, not an option
Every business clearance produces data: personnel files, customer data, accounting, contracts, plus hard drives, servers, copiers with internal memory and backup media. This data is subject to the Swiss Data Protection Act (Datenschutzgesetz) and may not simply be thrown away.
Paper has to be destroyed to recognised security levels, and data carriers physically destroyed or wiped to a certified standard. You should receive a destruction certificate (Vernichtungsprotokoll) for this. A provider who simply tips ring binders into a skip is creating a legal problem for you.
Mind the retention periods
Not everything may be destroyed. Business books, accounting vouchers and business correspondence are subject to a ten-year retention obligation in Switzerland under the Code of Obligations (Obligationenrecht). Those records must still be kept after the business has been wound up — we set them aside and hand them over instead of destroying them.
Resale reduces the cost substantially
Unlike apartment clearances, business clearances often involve substantial value. Machine tools, forklifts, commercial kitchens, shelving systems, server hardware and high-quality office furniture all have a real second-hand market. Where the business equipment is in good condition, the resale proceeds can exceed the clearance cost.
A real-world example
An engineering office in Dübendorf with 400 m² of floor space is wound up. Contents: 22 workstations, a server room, an archive with around 300 running metres of files, a kitchen and a meeting room. The workstation furniture goes to a used-furniture dealer; the server hardware is wiped to a certified standard and resold. From the archive, accounting-relevant records are set aside and handed to the fiduciary; the rest is destroyed to security level P-4, with a certificate. Duration: four days.
Services that cover this
Frequently asked questions about Business Clearance
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