Topic: Do your onsite maintenance teams do lockouts or does the resident have to call a locksmith?

Hey everyone! Do your onsite maintenance teams do lockouts or does the resident have to call a locksmith? If your team takes care of it, is there a charge and how much?

No lockouts.

Locksmith

We do lock outs but because we have key fobs. If they call a locksmith, the locksmith will damage the door lock. Which that costs around $200 to replace and takes forever.

We charge $100 lock out fee.

I do believe there are some locksmiths that’s specialize with the fobs though

Locksmith, give them the info, Resident handles--
Lockouts are NOT an emergency!

I work in student housing, our student staff handles after hours lock outs.

We do lockouts, but charge $100.00 if it's after business hours, because maintenance has to go back in. In this event, the resident would call our emergency maintenance line, a 3rd party creates a work order for the apartment, the work order fills in the lease holder's information, and maintenance check ID to ensure the information matches.

$35 for after hours lock out

Locksmith, because Maintence has no way to verify they are an actual resident.

Since we have electronic locks, we do lockouts. It sucks!

Locksmith after hours. If the office is open, we do it ~ no charge, unless they need new keys. Then it is $5.

$45 for after hours Lock out

Locksmith thank goodness. It's amazing how few lockouts we have now

We charge 50.00 to come back out.

We do not complete lock outs after hours Maintenance does not look at a file to verify if it’s an actual resident, also for safety of the employee. Residents are required to call a locksmith.

Maintenance does it; charge of $75

Places I’ve worked charged between 25-100 for after hours lockout. I’ve never personally collected it though.

Locksmith. They can’t get in they need to take care of it and provide a key within 24 hours or next business day.

Locksmith. Charge if they don't provide us a key and we have to rekey again.

On call maintenance has to go back, check rent roll & ID. Fee is $50. That tends to keep it down to those that seriously need the service. Probably 1% of the portfolio use that service request over a year's time. Probably more call and want someone to come out but the answering service tells them about the fee so if the resident doesn't agree to it they don't even call us.

So I’ve worked at a variety of these situations, some where 1 was no charge , the other 2 were charged $50 a time, however , 1 of those 2 charged it to your account and paid me o.t. Pay, the other gave me no o.t. Pay but the $50 went to me instead

No way, maintenance cannot verify that the person requesting entry is an actual resident. Even if they are or can produce an ID with that address … could be they were locked out for a reason. Too much risk involved.

Why wouldn’t maintenance be able to verify that person is an actual resident?

3 of our maintenance technicians do not have access to Yardi. Having stated that, I am more concerned about domestic abuse. I worked a property that had 3 murders in 1 year. What if there was OP ordered and we open a door? Not worth the risk involved after hours.
If I locked myself out of my leased vehicle, trust that the car dealer will not come and unlock my door.

We have On-Call Maintenance for emergencies. We don’t consider a lock out necessarily an “emergency”, but maintenance has always ALWAYS gone for them. We do charge the resident $50 for this. If they don’t have cash to give maintenance right then, we find a way to retrieve the payment. Not every maintenance tech asks for it though.

We do also verify that the person is an actual resident. We as managers are On-Call 24/7 as we all know how this job is lol. The maintenance tech calls the manager to verify the resident. This is possible because we use Appfolio for our computer system that we’re able to access through our phone web browser or can download the app so makes it super easy.

You can lose keys or misplace them at any point. Not everyone has a means to go somewhere else for the night or if they’re intoxicated, not everyone makes the best decisions if they’re not able to get into their apartment. We also would absolutely never want our residents to stay outside in the winters here in MN.

Is it annoying when it’s 3AM and an intoxicated person calls because they’re locked out or even anyone calling at any point for this lol, but I believe it’s one of the best things we offer. Plus….. Maintenance techs get compensated very well for this inconvenience lol. It’s worth it for many reasons

On call. Maintenance has to check ID against leaseholders and it's a $50 cash charge that the tech keeps all of.

Surprised by these answers. We’ve always opened it for our residents. Could you imagine being locked out of your home and knowing your management company has access but refuses to help you out? Unless specifically told at move-in to make sure I knew and was ok with it - otherwise I’d be pretty upset.

Someone above said they don’t consider this an emergency - it very well could be an emergency - what if a child is locked inside? What if food is on the stove? I mean, a number of things could cause this to be an emergency. Imagine a building burning down because a locksmith took hours to come out.

We refer to a locksmith. Back in the day when maintenance did do it, we charged $60 to the
Resident and gave
that to the tech that responded to the call.

I use deadbolts and passage sets. I don’t have lockouts. Haven’t for years.

Technically no…
But… when I have three employees living onsite (myself included) what’s the reason for not helping a neighbor in a bad situation?

Normal business hours no charge. From 5-midnight and weekends 8 am-midnight $35. Between midnight and 8 a.m. $70. On call tech has a tenant list with birthdays. They have to confirm birthday before door is unlocked.

We use Landlord Locks. We have them set up so that the residents have to use their key to lock up when they leave. No more lockouts.

Last property I worked for we would charge $50 cash and it has to be given to the maintenance guy at the time of arrival to be let in. If the person said well we don't have cash we would wait for them to go to the ATM and come back.

We stopped installing door knobs with locks to make it impossible for residents to lock themselves out. They needed a key to lock the deadbolt on their way out. We don’t do lockouts but will call the locksmith for them. They pay him directly.

I’ve had people call me on holiday weekends bc they lost their keys when they live with their significant other or a roommate…So call them to let you in or pay the locksmith.