Rent is the scariest bill in the building, because it's the one attached to the walls. But a missed month doesn't mean losing the lease the next morning — in both France and Switzerland, the law builds in a clock, and what you do while it runs matters more than the missed payment itself. This is not legal advice; it's the map of what exists, to take to your accountant or lawyer early — early is the part that preserves your options.
France: the commandement de payer and its one-month clock
A commercial lease almost always carries a clause résolutoire — automatic termination for unpaid rent. But the law (art. L145-41 of the Code de commerce) forces a process: the landlord must serve a formal commandement de payer through a commissaire de justice, and you then have a minimum of one month to pay in full. Termination is not automatic even after that: it goes through a judge, and the judge can grant délais de grâce — court-ordered payment delays (art. 1343-5 of the Code civil) — suspending the clause's effects while you catch up. A tenant who shows up with a payment plan and real numbers is in a very different position from one who went silent.
Switzerland: the 30-day comminatory notice
For commercial premises, art. 257d CO gives the sequence: the landlord serves a written notice fixing a payment deadline of at least 30 days, with an explicit threat of termination. Only if that deadline passes unpaid can the lease be terminated — with at least 30 more days' notice, to the end of a month. The notice must state the amount clearly, and case law protects tenants against abusive terminations over disputed or inflated sums. As in France: the window is there to be used, not waited out.
The order to do things in
- Talk to the landlord before the formal letter exists — a proposed schedule beats a bailiff's envelope, and a moratorium or temporary reduction is a negotiation, not a legal procedure
- If the formal notice arrives, don't let the clock run silent: partial payment plus a written plan changes the legal posture in both countries
- Bring your accountant in at the first missed month, not the third — France's amiable procedures and Switzerland's arrangements all work better before arrears stack up
- Check the ratio that got you here: occupancy costs (rent, charges, insurance) above roughly 10% of revenue mean the problem is structural — the arrears are a symptom, and the diagnostic in the struggling-restaurant guide is where to start
The arrears are a symptom
Rent is the one big cost you can't move short-term — which is exactly why the other two have to carry it. When rent runs above a tenth of revenue, every point of food cost drift or over-scheduled week lands directly on the account that pays the landlord. The venues that get out of rent trouble almost never do it by negotiating rent alone; they do it by recovering the margin that makes the rent payable. The negotiation buys time; the margin pays the rent.
