Can a Tenant Change the Locks Without the Landlord's Permission

Landlords and locks and keys

Locks and keys in rented properties can often cause problems.  Landlords like to retain control over their properties and this includes having sets of keys and then they can proceeds access whenever they want.

Tenants, needless to say, don't like the thought of their landlord, or indeed anyone else, being able to enter their belongings when they are not there.

What is the legal state of affairs regarding locks and keys?

More often than not when someone signs a tenancy agreement they will then 'own' the property for a slice of time. A tenancy is an 'estate in land' and different legally from, say, a lodger state of affairs where the lodger just has the right to use the room.

So if the tenant owns the land (or apartment or whatsoever information technology is) he also has the right to change the locks if he wants. And so far as I am enlightened, nether the common law there is zip to stop a tenant doing this, and he is under no (legal) obligation to give a ready of the new keys to the landlord.

Nevertheless many tenancy agreements now comprehend this situation and specify that the tenant must not modify the locks without the landlords permission.  If the landlord does give permission, this will normally be on status that the tenant give a set of the new keys to the landlord.

Tenants irresolute the locks and keys

What is the state of affairs therefore where the tenancy agreement prohibits irresolute the locks without permission, but where the tenant does this anyhow, and refuses to mitt a set of the new keys over?

My view is that he will exist in breach of his tenancy agreement, but short of getting an injunction (which is expensive and not guaranteed to be successful) there is non a lot the landlord can do most information technology. Not during the tenancy anyway. After the tenant has vacated he may well have a merits against the tenancy eolith for the cost of new locks and keys.

However this may not always be the case.

Landlords are not entitled to enter the belongings without the tenants permission. This is a primal right tenants accept which is included in all tenancy agreements past implication, fifty-fifty if not specifically stated in the tenancy agreement. And then if landlords start inbound the property without the tenants knowledge or consent, the landlord is in alienation of the terms of the tenancy understanding.

Even if the tenancy agreement says that the landlord tin can go in when he likes.  Any clause like this will exist void and unenforceable under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations.

Landlords using keys to proceeds access without permission

Over the years I take had countless tenants complain to me that their landlords keep coming into their property. Tenants often find this intimidating, particularly single women tenants with male person landlords. I can recall one tenant telling me that she was terrified to have a bath, later coming out of the bath one mean solar day wrapped in a towel, to find her (male) landlord at the pes of the stairs leering upwardly at her.

My advice to tenants in this state of affairs is just to change the locks. The landlord will not be able to complain about it. Technically it may exist in breach of the tenancy understanding, just the landlord's breach in persistently coming onto the property without permission is far more serious.

A benefit to landlords of not holding keys

Incidentally there may also be an reward to the landlord in not having a set of keys. If a landlord holds keys, especially if he is known to enter the property from fourth dimension to time, he may exist in a difficult position if the tenant accuses him of theft of the tenants belongings. If he has no keys he cannot be blamed for anything which might happen in the belongings, as he has no ways of admission.

What practise you think? Are y'all a tenant who has been bothered past landlords persistently coming into the belongings without your permission? If you are a landlord, what bug are acquired when tenants change the locks? Have whatsoever landlords been accused of theft by their tenants?

Note – nosotros subsequently had a long give-and-take on this topic hither where barrister Francis Davey said that landlords do take a correct to enter property even without the tenants consent but merely in the correct circumstances.

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Source: https://landlordlawblog.co.uk/2010/07/13/locks-and-keys-what-are-tenants-rights/

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