Need clarification about the limitation of buying a home with second pillar

[drdux]

My spouse and I are considering of buying a home as our own residence using second pillar fund.

The government website states that the property you buy must be your principal residence. My questions are, what if after a couple years we would like to rent out the entirety of our home or part of our home for legitimate reasons, like moving abroad or another canton for work? If this is strictly not allowed, are there alternatives like paying back the second pillar contribution to get the permission to rent out?

Thank you in advance for anyone who can point me to more info. I tried to search online but wasn't able to find a straight answer.

 

[surplus123]

@drdux Very good question!

My understanding is that this rule was put in place because too many people emptied their retirement funds in order to speculate on the housing market by buying secondary residences up the mountains, or buy to rent and such, which caused the housing bubble to continue to grow!
And then you also had the fools who took so much out of their retirement funds that, once retired, their revenue was not high enough to qualify for the mortgage on their own house(s)...you know, the same generation that just got a 13th avs revenue...

So they put this rule in place to reduce the housing bubble, and to protect stupid boomers.

I think the rule is applied by your pension fund when you take money out when you first buy, but there is no mechanism to my knowledge to then prevents you to rent out something you own.
To my knowledge, there is no "permission" needed to rent out something you own.

But if you would then want to take more money out of your pension fund 5+ years later, they could ask what happened to your "first" house.

But I know I asked my bank when I bought my appartment, and their comment was: we don't care!

 

[mndad2]

@drdux Apparently there has been a federal court ruling about such a case: BGE 9C_293/2020. There it was deemed to be OK to rent out even in case of pension withdrawal for original primary residence. However that person lived in the house for more than a decade. If intention is from the beginning to rent out or timespan is too short, then it would be illegal and you would be forced to pay back the withdrawn pension.

 

[surplus123]

@mndad2 Ok, so my limited understanding of German (BGE 9C_293/2020) makes me understand that it's the pension fund which took the person to court, which makes me wonder: if you change employer, you change pension fund. If you want to rent your house out, surely it's because you are moving to get closer to your new work, and therefore, you will affiliate with the new pension fund. Why would they want to sue you since you took the money from the previous pension fund.

 

[veritas2016]

@surplus123 Because they want more money? When you change, all the money is transferred to the new fund. If there is less in your previous account then they get less to play around with/ pay themselves etc.

 

[surplus123]

@veritas2016 So if that happens, you just quit your job, take all the money out of their pension fund, put it in a compte libre passage, and tell them to f**k off.

So again, I don't see the exact case where this scenario actually happens, except if you clearly lie the first time when you take money from your pension fund.