Tenant's Key in File

Trish

I remember reading I thought someone where can't locate it about if a tenant wants to keep a key in file.  I know it poses a liability however if tenant signs an agreement stating the facility/employees, etc are not liable.  Does anyone have thoughts on this subject.  This particular tenant is forever losing all three keys and is getting tired of cut lock fees plus replacement lock. 

CVSSSTORAGE

We only have one tenant that we have their key. She is currently in rehab, her daughter sometimes needs in so we keep it here for her daughter and she brings it back before she leaves. Other than that we do not want people's keys 

themage

Years ago we would hold keys for tenants to receive packages or for when they forgot keys. We are large enough it got to be a lot of keys, and then of course people complain that something is missing or didn't get delivered and tried to blame us. Just wasn't worth it so we have a firm no holding keys policy.

Trish

Thank you very helpful.

Dtinfla

If you ever have somebody walk into your office, stick their finger in your face and accuse you of stealing from them because YOU  have a key to their unit...you become very hesitant to extend this courtesy to another tenant.  Just because somebody is forgetful and tends to lose their keys is not justification for me to expose myself to that kind of liability.  There are situations where we still have them sign a form authorizing us to hold a key, and it specifically lists who is authorized to pick up that key, but we are very selective who we extend that option to. 

MamaDuke7

We have a lot of elderly tenants that tend to lose keys.  We have a "Hold Harmless" form that they sign and we will keep a key in the file.  We've never had an issue.

ESS

We have a form for this. We do tend to have tenants who lose their keys a lot, even forget their combos. When we keep a key or combo on file, we have them sign the form for it and they mark off whichever reason applies to them. I've never encountered an issue with it in the 2 1/2 years I've been with the company. If anyone were to ever accuse us of stealing from them, we have plenty of surveillance cameras that we in the office don't even have the authorization to look over or manipulate so that would cover our butts. 

Taslim

We have a 'Authorization to hold key' form that tenants need to sign if they want to leave their key. We recently had changed the lights inside the unit to LED and requested keys from our tenants and had them sign the form. Once done, I emailed every tenant to pick their key from the office as we don't really want to be liable for anything. Only a few tenant leaves their key as they receive shipment in their unit and they know we are not liable if anything goes missing 

teamcapitola

Holding a key for a tenant can create a bailment; care custody and control.

We do it for a few business tenants (for package deliveries), and have a ton of forms to sign.

I don't think I would allow holding a key for a non-business tenant....far too many litigious people in the world...and everyone's friends till its time to pay the rent! (or grammas ring is missing from the unit!)

Maybe order a 4 digit combo lock, or one of the Wordlock combos from Chateau?  They even make biometric ones and WiFi enabled locks. 

umopapisdn

A settings feature for this option would definitely be helpful.. I’ve just been including an on-screen keyboard on our second monitor so that (in the not-so-rare instance where tenants don’t see the “Draw” tab) an method is already available with the other options. 

Submit a feature request... although, of the many I’ve submitted, there isn’t much measurable data to suggest they’re useful.