Administrative Law

When dealing with a public authority, every matter has its own timetable and formal requirements. A company receives an administrative decision (Verfügung) it considers disproportionate and wants to know whether a challenge is worthwhile before committing to one. An individual must put together a complete file for a permit or an application with a municipal or cantonal authority, and struggles to assemble the required documents. An association faces a new administrative requirement and wants to comply with it without multiplying unnecessary exchanges with the authority. A property owner receives a notice from a tax authority or a building control authority whose real scope is not obvious.

What these situations have in common is not the nature of the authority involved, but uncertainty about how to proceed: respond, challenge, wait, or request an extension. Lexper first analyzes the decision or request received, places it in the context of the client's overall file, then builds a strategy that accounts for both the applicable law and the practical, including financial, consequences of each option. Putting a figure on each option is an integral part of this work: a challenge entails one set of costs and delays, while accepting the decision entails another, and the client must be able to decide with full knowledge of both.

When the file calls for a formal step before an appeals body, or an act that only a registered professional can perform, Lexper retains, with the client's consent, a registered attorney (admitted to a Swiss cantonal bar registry) competent in administrative law. Lexper prepares the file beforehand, coordinates with the professional retained, and remains the client's point of contact until the matter is concluded.

This single point of entry saves the client from having to work out, under time pressure, which professional to contact for which aspect of the file. It also prevents documents from being scattered across several contacts, a factor that often slows down an administrative file more than its substantive complexity.

Exchanges with an authority follow precise forms, with a designated contact at each stage. Lexper knows this framework and prepares the client's file accordingly, which reduces back-and-forth correspondence and clarifies, from the outset, what can reasonably be expected from the step being taken.