One of my nice tenants, a gentleman, rang me at 6.30am Saturday morning to let me know he had lost his key and was unable to get hold of the landlord. At least he was not stuck outside in the cold in his socks as he works very close to his flat. In this particular case I was engaged on a ‘Let Only’ service for the landlord rather than managing on an ongoing basis and did not hold a key. If I did I would normally be able to lend a tenant a key for a short period to let them get access to the property again (once I was sure they still were lawfully accessing the property).
In this case the landlord has a friend who also holds a key. So was able to give the tenant a few things.
- The contact numbers he needed
- Confirmation that I did not hold the key (sometimes I do but I keep back ups of computer records off site so could check the exact situation)
- The number for Martin Yeomans from Mylock Locksmiths tel 07968 031 054 so that if necessary he could resolve the problem if he was unable to contact the landlord.
Often landlords are willing to help tenants with loans of a key but they would normally expect you to travel to them rather than the other way round. After all if a key is lost the responsibility is the tenants to make good on the situation.
Lessons Learnt
Lessons for tenants and for all of us is to keep a record of this information in case you ever need it on your phone and perhaps elsewhere at work. In this case my luckless tenant’s mobile phone battery had also gone. Always have your emergency contacts and most definately one of those numbers should be a local locksmith.
This story has a happy ending, at a reasonable time I also called the landlord to let them know what had happened and once the landlord was up and around, he kindly dropped a spare set over to the tenant and the tenant offered to pay for the set he had just cut.
