Terms of use

The German version is legally binding.

1. Provider and scope

1.1 Vorbau (vorbau.ch) is operated by EAS International, sole proprietorship of Urs Zimmermann, Klybeckstrasse 141, 4057 Basel, Switzerland, info@vorbau.ch (‘Vorbau’, ‘we’; see the legal notice).

1.2 These GTC apply to any use of vorbau.ch, to accounts, email alerts, the paid Pro and Business plans and to firm profiles. Anyone who merely views the website is bound by sections 7, 8, 9, 14 and 18.

1.3 Customers’ deviating terms do not apply, even if we do not expressly object to them.

1.4 The paid offers are aimed at customers domiciled or with their registered office in Switzerland or Liechtenstein. By making a purchase, you confirm that this applies to you.

2. Services

2.1 Vorbau compiles data from official registers and publications on a map and in lists: buildings and dwellings with the status planned, approved or under construction from the Federal Register of Buildings and Dwellings (RBD), building permit applications from cantonal official gazettes, forced auctions of real property from the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SOGC) and the cantonal official gazettes, and company data from the commercial register. Building permit applications are only available for cantons that publish via amtsblattportal.ch (currently ZH, BE, ZG, BS, BL, AR and TI).

2.2 The plans include:

The description of services on the pricing page at the time of purchase is authoritative. Firm profiles are governed by section 11.

2.3 Vorbau continues to develop the service and may change features. For paid plans, the core services listed in section 2.2 remain available for the paid term. If a data source ceases to be available through no fault of ours (e.g. because an authority discontinues or restricts its publication), this does not constitute a defect. We will inform you; if a core service ceases permanently, you may cancel a monthly subscription with immediate effect or, in the case of an annual pass, receive a refund of the unused portion on request.

3. Account and conclusion of contract

3.1 You need an account for Pro, Business, firm profiles and to manage alerts. You sign in with your email address and a code that we send to you. You must be at least 18 years old or act with the consent of your legal representative. You keep access to your email inbox secure. An account is personal and may not be shared with others; this also applies to Business (one account per person).

3.2 The contract is concluded as follows:

1. On the pricing page, you choose the plan and the payment option (monthly subscription or annual pass) or set up a firm profile.
2. You sign in, if you have not already done so.
3. You are redirected to Stripe’s payment page. There you can see the service, price and term and can check, correct or cancel your entries before completing the purchase.
4. By clicking the payment button, you make a binding offer. The contract is concluded as soon as the payment is confirmed.
5. You receive a confirmation by email without delay.

3.3 Swiss law does not provide for a right of withdrawal for contracts concluded online.

4. Prices and payment

4.1 The prices on the pricing page at the time of purchase apply. Currently:

• Pro: CHF 14 per month (monthly subscription) or CHF 120 for 12 months (annual pass)
• Business: CHF 59 per month (monthly subscription) or CHF 490 for 12 months (annual pass)
• Firm profile: CHF 290 for 12 months (annual pass)

4.2 Prices are final prices in Swiss francs. Vorbau is not liable for VAT; no VAT is charged.

4.3 Payment is made via Stripe using the payment methods offered on the payment page. The monthly subscription is charged in advance at the start of each period; annual passes are charged once at the time of purchase.

4.4 Discount codes are valid only in accordance with their terms and cannot be redeemed for cash.

4.5 We will notify you of price changes for an ongoing monthly subscription by email at least 30 days before they take effect. If you do not agree, you may cancel with effect from the date the change takes effect; otherwise the new price applies from the next period. The price of an annual pass that has been paid for does not change.

4.6 If a payment fails, Stripe will attempt the charge again. If payment is not received, the account reverts to the Free plan at the end of the paid period.

5. Term and cancellation

5.1 Monthly subscription: The monthly subscription runs for one month at a time and renews automatically for a further month unless you cancel it. You may cancel it at any time with effect from the end of the current period, without giving reasons, in your account under ‘Payments and receipts’ (Stripe customer portal) or by email to info@vorbau.ch. The plan remains active until the end of the period.

5.2 Annual pass: An annual pass is valid for 12 months from payment and ends automatically; it does not renew and does not need to be cancelled. If you buy a further annual pass for the same plan before expiry, the new term follows on from the existing one.

5.3 Change of plan: With a monthly subscription, you change plans in the Stripe customer portal; billing is pro rata, and you see the amount before confirming. While an annual pass is running, a change is possible after it expires; for an immediate change, write to us.

5.4 No refund: Periods already paid for are not refunded pro rata upon cancellation, except in the cases set out in sections 2.3, 5.5 and 11.2 or where mandatory law provides otherwise.

5.5 We may terminate a contract without notice for good cause and block an account or profile, in particular in the event of serious or repeated breaches of sections 9 or 11. In this case there is no entitlement to a refund, unless the blocking is unjustified. Without good cause, we may terminate a monthly subscription with 30 days’ notice to the end of a period, and an annual pass only against a refund of the unused portion.

5.6 You may have your account, including a Free account, deleted at any time (see the privacy policy). You must first cancel any ongoing monthly subscription.

6. Availability

We endeavour to ensure uninterrupted operation but do not guarantee any particular level of availability. Maintenance, disruptions at data sources, hosting providers or payment service providers, and force majeure may temporarily restrict the service. We send alerts on a best-efforts basis; there is no entitlement to the timely delivery of individual emails.

7. Origin and quality of the data

7.1 The data comes from official registers and publications and is taken over, linked and geolocated automatically. Errors may arise in the process, in particular:

• Registers and official gazettes may be incomplete, delayed or incorrect; weeks to months may pass between a decision and the register entry.
• Building permit applications are assigned to buildings by municipality and plot number; the assignment may be wrong or missing.
• The location of auctioned properties may be imprecise (plot, address or municipality only).
• Links between building permit applications and companies are based on the UID (business identification number) or the exact company name and may be wrong where names are identical.
• Planned and approved projects may be changed, delayed or abandoned.

7.2 Official estimates in forced auctions are the official valuation taken from the publication, not a market value and not an expert appraisal. Only the official original publications (signed PDF in the official gazette or the SOGC), the land register and the information provided by the competent authorities are legally binding.

7.3 Vorbau does not replace checking the original sources, nor does it replace legal, financial or construction advice. Anyone wishing to take part in an auction, lodge an objection or invest must obtain information from the competent authority (municipality, debt enforcement or bankruptcy office, land registry). We do not calculate deadlines in a binding manner.

7.4 The respective authority is responsible for errors in the official data itself. You may report errors in Vorbau’s processing to us; we will correct them to the extent reasonable.

8. Rights in Vorbau and in the data

8.1 The design, software, texts, logo and the selection and arrangement of the data of Vorbau are protected. For the duration of your plan, you receive a non-transferable, non-exclusive right to use Vorbau for your own purposes within the scope of these GTC.

8.2 The official data is additionally subject to the terms of the respective source (see Sources and licences). Anyone who shares extracts must cite the sources using the wording given there.

9. Permitted use

9.1 Use is permitted for personal searches for housing or real estate and for professional research in individual cases, e.g. market monitoring or the acquisition of business within the scope of section 9.3.

9.2 The following in particular is not permitted:

1. automated retrieval of data (scraping, crawling, bots, mass API queries), except via the CSV export in the Business plan;
2. publishing, selling, passing on or making available the database or substantial parts of it to third parties, including CSV exports (with the exception of internal use within your own business);
3. building a competing service or directory using data from Vorbau;
4. circumventing technical protection measures, access restrictions or plan limits, and sharing accounts;
5. any use that harasses, threatens or investigates persons or infringes their personality rights, in particular creating profiles of private individuals.

9.3 Contacting developers/building owners, project authors (architects) and firms. The authorities published the names in building permit applications so that the public can take note of the construction project, not for advertising. Therefore:

1. You may not contact private individuals (natural persons named as developer/building owner or project author) for advertising or acquisition purposes, whether by email, SMS, telephone or messenger, or by letter, flyer or home visit.
2. You may contact firms provided that you comply with the law in doing so. Mass advertising by email, SMS or similar means without the recipient’s prior consent is unfair (Art. 3(1)(o) of the Federal Act against Unfair Competition (UCA)), including towards businesses. Every advertising email requires the correct sender and a simple, free means of unsubscribing. Advertising calls to numbers marked with an asterisk in the directory are prohibited (Art. 3(1)(u) UCA). Sole proprietorships are to be treated like private individuals insofar as you address their owner personally.
3. You are yourself responsible for your contacts and for processing personal data from Vorbau (as an independent controller within the meaning of the Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP)). You must comply immediately with an objection by the data subject and then delete the data.
4. You may not claim or give the impression that you are acting on behalf of an authority or of Vorbau.

Contact via the enquiry form of a firm profile is permitted; the firm has registered for this purpose.

9.4 If you breach section 9, we may block your account and terminate the contract in accordance with section 5.5. Business customers shall indemnify Vorbau against third-party claims based on their unlawful use and reimburse the reasonable costs of legal defence.

10. Firm directory (Business)

10.1 The firm directory shows companies from the commercial register (Zefix, open government data of the Confederation) that are identified as architecture firms, with company name, legal form, UID, registered address and the building permit applications in which they are named as project author or developer/building owner. Assignment to the category is automatic, based on the company name and purpose, and may be incomplete or incorrect.

10.2 The directory serves research and market overview purposes. Section 9.3 applies to making contact. We only show a website, email address and telephone number if the firm itself has provided them in a firm profile.

10.3 Companies may request that information be corrected. Sole proprietorships (natural persons) may object to being shown in the directory (see the privacy policy).

11. Firm profiles

11.1 Who may create a profile: A firm profile may only be created for a firm entered in the commercial register, and only by the firm itself or a person authorised by it. For verification, you confirm an email address on the domain of the firm’s website with a code. We review the profile before publication. We may reject a profile without giving reasons; in that case we will refund any payment already made in full.

11.2 Term and price: The firm profile costs CHF 290 for 12 months (annual pass, one-off payment). The term begins with payment and ends automatically, without renewal; thereafter the profile is no longer publicly visible. A renewal before expiry follows on from the existing term. If we discontinue firm profiles, we will refund the unused portion.

11.3 Service: The profile comprises a public profile page accessible to search engines with the firm’s information, a list of the building permit applications in which the firm is named as project author, an enquiry form, and a label in the firm directory and on the map. We do not guarantee any particular ranking, reach or number of enquiries.

11.4 Content: The firm is responsible for the information in the profile (description, services, regions, website, telephone, contact address). It must be true and lawful and must not infringe third-party rights, be misleading or contain advertising for third parties. The company name, address and UID come from the commercial register and cannot be changed. We may change or remove information that breaches this section and block the profile in accordance with section 5.5.

11.5 Enquiries: We forward enquiries submitted via the form once by email to the confirmed contact address; the reply goes directly to the person making the enquiry. Vorbau is not a party to any resulting contracts, charges no commission and does not store the enquiries. The firm processes the data from enquiries as an independent controller under the FADP.

12. CSV export (Business)

The export contains information from the RBD and from building permit applications. It does not contain the names of private individuals. It is intended solely for internal use within your own business (section 9.2(b)). You must protect exported personal data in accordance with the FADP, keep it up to date and delete it as soon as you no longer need it, but no later than 12 months after the export. The attribution in the file must not be removed.

13. Alerts

Alerts set up without an account only become active after confirmation via a link. You can end any alert via the unsubscribe link or in your account. The number of alerts and their frequency depend on the plan (section 2.2).

14. Liability

14.1 Vorbau is liable for damage that we cause intentionally or through gross negligence, and for personal injury in accordance with the statutory provisions.

14.2 Otherwise, Vorbau’s liability for slight negligence is excluded to the extent permitted by law (Art. 100(1) of the Code of Obligations (CO)). This applies in particular to damage resulting from incorrect, incomplete or delayed data from official sources (section 7), from decisions taken on the basis of the information (e.g. purchase, bid at an auction, objection, investment), from missed deadlines and from interruptions to the service, as well as to indirect damage and loss of profit. Liability for auxiliary persons is limited to the same extent (Art. 101(2) CO).

14.3 For paid services, any liability for slight negligence, insofar as it cannot be excluded, is limited to the amount paid in the last 12 months.

14.4 Vorbau is not responsible for third-party content and services (authority portals, public displays of plans, map services, payment service providers) or for information in firm profiles.

15. Data protection

How we process personal data is set out in the privacy policy.

16. Communication

We communicate by email to the address of your account. Notices are deemed to have been received when they have been sent to this address. Keep it up to date.

17. Amendments to the GTC

We may amend these GTC, e.g. in the event of new features or changes in the legal situation. We will notify you by email at least 30 days before they take effect of any amendments that affect ongoing paid contracts to your disadvantage; you may cancel a monthly subscription with effect from the date they take effect. For an ongoing annual pass, disadvantageous amendments only apply after it expires, unless they are required by law or by an authority. For free use, the version published at the time applies.

18. Final provisions

18.1 Swiss law applies, to the exclusion of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and the conflict-of-laws rules. For consumers with their habitual residence abroad, the mandatory protective provisions of their state of residence are reserved.

18.2 The place of jurisdiction is Basel. For consumers, the place of jurisdiction at their domicile also applies; they may bring proceedings before the court at their domicile or in Basel and may only be sued at their domicile (Arts. 32 and 35 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC)).

18.3 If any provision is invalid, the remaining provisions remain valid. It is replaced by the statutory provision.

18.4 These GTC are available in German, French, Italian and English. The German version is authoritative.

As of 11 October 2026