OWNER’S HANDBOOK

LOCK CHANGE

Who changes the locks? Before we address lock changes, a question owners often ask is “why do we have to change locks? That is just an unnecessary expense.” How would you feel if you rented a hotel room and knew that the occupants of the last three nights all had a copy of the room card and the hotel never reset the door lock. Or worse, what if those three occupant knew that the hotel didn’t change the locks? If you were robbed or assaulted by someone who had a key card that opened your hotel room, what liability would the hotel have for that crime? Would you sue the hotel for not changing the locks? Regardless of how you answered these questions, Real Property Management Express believes we have an obligation to secure the property by changing locks between every occupant and we are committed to changing locks for the safety of our residents.

So who changes the locks? It is best if Real Property Management Express changes the locks. In most cases we rekey all the locks in the property to one key. This eliminates giving the resident a handful of keys. We just give them two copies of one key. This system also helps with key management. With multiple properties, key management quickly becomes a disaster if not controlled with a system. If the door has a dead bolt, we replace the keyed entry lock with a simple passage lock. This means the tenant cannot lock themselves out, because they need a key to lock the door, and the next time the property is rekeys, we don’t have to touch the passage lock. We only have to rekey the deadbolts. Finally, we never label our keys with the address of the property. That way, if a key is dropped or lost, there is no indication on the key which property it opens.

We understand property management and property investments. With over thirty years’ experience in property management and more than 300 offices in the United States and Canada, we have become the largest property management franchise in North America.