The entrance of my apartment has two doors: a normal external door, and a second door just behind that (both with locks on them).
My landlord provided me with keys to the front door, however, did not give me any keys for the second. I was told to keep the locking mechanism off as no one had a key for that second door.
Yesterday, new tenants came to inspect the apartment (I’m moving out soon). They fiddled with the second door, and I didn’t realise that they had activated the locking mechanism.
Hence, when I left the house later that day, the second door–which normally doesn’t close properly–swung shut and locked me out.
My landlord provided me with some keys to try, but none of them worked. He did not know where a key for that door could be found.
I had to get an emergency locksmith to come and break the lock in order to enter the apartment again.
My question is: who is responsible for the locksmith costs?
On the hand, I am responsible for internal doors and keys as the tenant. However, who has an automatically locking door and doesn’t know where the key is? That’s just a disaster waiting to happen…Thoughts?
Really the LL should have taken that unnecessary lock off to prevent situations like this happening. I don’t think, though, that you’ll get anything from the LL even if you take them to court. Unless some legislation-heavy LL will quote a helpful piece of legislation to you. But, again, you’ll have to use the court system. Small court is not expensive, but the burden of proof will be on you, the claimant. That’s where the problem lies.
I agree this should be the landlord’s responsibility as it was not you who misplaced the key. And the landlord should have a spare key, or have properly disabled the lock if not, otherwise this could be a significant safety risk (in the event of a fire/flood etc). Make sure you keep all receipts from the locksmith and send a copy to the landlord when requesting reimbursement. Also if the locksmith hasn’t already removed the lock, you should request this from the landlord too.