Realty World - Sales and Rentals in Charlotte, NC

Keys, Keys, Keys

Keys to a house are a very important issue. Everytime a tenant moves out and the property is offered to another tenant, the locks are changed so we are certain that no one except the new tenant and our company has a key to the property. For safety and liability reasons, this is the best policy. We never know who a previous tenant gave a house key to, and what their background is. My greatest fear is that we would not change the locks on a property and, after the new single mother tenant moves in, someone with a key from the previous tenant decides to visit the house in the middle of the night and assaults the new tenant, or worse.  Althought it is an expense, it is worth every dollar to prevent something like this from happening.

I was reminded of the value of knowing that you have the only key to your house this week by a strange set of circumstances. One of our female tenants, who recently moved in to a property with her boyfriend/baby's daddy had recently kicked him out of the house and taken his house key (we had no knowledge of the breakup). On Friday just after we closed, we had a knock on the door and a young man was there saying he had locked his house key inside his house. We verified his identity, verified he was on the lease and checked for any notes about him and found none, so we cut a new key for him.

Then, on Monday AM, the young lady that he lived with showed up at our office upset that we had given him a key and asking us to change the locks on the property. Unfortunately, the cost of the lock change will be the tenant's responsibility. Had she notified us that there was a separation and a restraining order, we would not have cut a new key for the male on the lease. Fortunately, there was no personal injury, only some items that were removed without permission.

So, keys and rekeying the locks are important to do after each tenant. To lower our joint liability and to keep our tenants safe, it's the only choice.

Posted - 07/20/2010

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