Hans Egloff

Hans Egloff (27 November 1959 to 5 October 2026) was a Swiss politician of the Swiss People's Party (SVP), a lawyer and former district judge, and for more than three decades one of the most persistent voices for homeowners in Switzerland. He sat in the Cantonal Council of Zurich from 1995 to 2011 and in the National Council in Bern from 2011 to 2019, led the Zurich cantonal homeowners' association (HEV Kanton Zürich) from 1999 until his death, and served as president of the national association, HEV Schweiz, from 2012 to 2024.

Egloff was born in Zurich and grew up in Aesch, a village in the Limmattal district west of the city. His father, Kurt Egloff (1932 to 2019), was also an SVP politician and has been described by the Tages-Anzeiger as Zurich's last SVP city councillor. Hans Egloff took the Matura (Type C) in 1979 and then trained at the Primarlehreroberseminar in Zurich, qualifying as a primary school teacher in 1981. He taught primary school in Geroldswil until 1983.

That year he began studying law at the University of Zurich, graduating with a licentiate (lic. iur.) in 1988. While a student he worked part time from 1985 to 1987 in investment advice at the Swiss Bank Corporation. He then moved through the Zurich justice system: auditor at the district attorney's office and at the Horgen district court in 1989 and 1990, chair of the Horgen rent conciliation authority and legal secretary from 1990, legal secretary at the cantonal jury court from 1990 to 1991, and district judge at the Zurich district court until 1998. He received his lawyer's licence in 1998 and became a partner in a law firm.

Egloff was a founding member of the Young SVP. He chaired the SVP section in Aesch from 1992 to 1998, joined the board of the cantonal party in 1995 and led the Dietikon district party from 1998 to 2004. Elected to the Cantonal Council of Zurich in 1995, he sat on its justice committee and chaired it from 2007. From his first year in the cantonal parliament he championed the interests of property owners. The NZZ described him as a politician who worked quietly, avoided polemics, built networks and alliances in the background and offered compromise even to opponents; among his cantonal achievements it credited him with helping abolish Zurich's inheritance tax for direct descendants.

His homeowners' work began locally. He presided over the HEV section for Birmensdorf, Uitikon and Aesch from 1996 to 2000, joined the board of HEV Kanton Zürich in 1997 and became its president in 1999. He was elected to the board of HEV Schweiz in 2004, joined its executive committee in 2005 and was its president from 2012 to 2024. In Bern he sat on the Committee for Legal Affairs and the Committee for Economic Affairs and Taxation, and in 2014 he co-founded and co-chaired the parliamentary group for housing and land ownership.

The cause most associated with his name was the abolition of the Eigenmietwert, the Swiss tax on the notional rental value of an owner-occupied home. Voters had rejected relief three times, in 1999, 2004 and 2012. In the National Council Egloff tabled a motion to let owners choose to stop paying the imputed rental tax in exchange for giving up most debt-interest deductions; the National Council adopted it, and although the Council of States later rejected the motion, the issue was taken up again in a parliamentary initiative that led to the reform of home ownership taxation. HEV Schweiz said he devoted his presidency to the goal and spent years preparing the political solution. On 28 September 2025 Swiss voters approved the reform with 57.7 percent, ending the tax. The real estate association SVIT called it his greatest political success and said he had laid the groundwork for the vote.

Under his presidency HEV Schweiz fought off several popular initiatives it considered hostile to property, and in 2022 it adopted a total revision of its statutes. He debated the tenants' movement in public, including a 2020 NZZ exchange with Balthasar Glättli of the Swiss Tenants' Association on the initiative for more affordable housing, in which Egloff argued for markets over quotas. He did not stand for re-election to the National Council in 2019 and left Bern that December. On 28 June 2024, at the 109th delegates' assembly in Lugano, he handed the national presidency to SVP National Councillor Gregor Rutz. He remained president of HEV Kanton Zürich and was pushing a cantonal home ownership initiative at the end of his life.

Outside the homeowners' cause he worked for the Limmattal, lobbying for road upgrades and more S-Bahn stops, presiding over the Pro Limmattalbahn association and inviting constituents to session reviews in local inns. He chaired the organising committee of the 26th Zurich Cantonal Shooting Festival in 2018 and sat on the political advisory board of SVIT Schweiz from its founding in 2017. Die Weltwoche remembered him as conservative in conviction and cultivated in manner, with distinctive glasses, a cigarette in the Federal Palace smoking room and a touch of British reserve.

Egloff was married and lived in Aesch. He died suddenly and unexpectedly on Monday, 5 October 2026, at the age of 66. The cause of death has not been made public. HEV Schweiz, SVIT, the Zurich SVP and the Young SVP paid tribute, and HEV Schweiz extended its condolences to his wife and family.