Emergency lock change (faulty lock) – Is the tenant liable?

Emergency lock change (faulty lock) – Is the tenant liable?

0:01 AM, 29th March 2023, About 2 years ago 43

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Hi, Last Sunday evening, our lock decided to fail (ERA night latch). All of a sudden, the key would not be able to turn the lock. My flatmates, who were inside, could not open the door either, the latch was simply stuck and would not turn despite countless attempts at it.

When it was clear it was not going to work, we sent multiple messages to our landlord explaining the situation (with videos) and tried to call him multiple times to no avail (and about an hour of waiting for a reply).

Given I was locked out of my flat, we called an emergency locksmith. Taking a look at the videos from inside and inspecting outside, he said the lock was faulty and the only option was a destructive opening using a drill. Having done that, he then replaced the lock with a similar one.

When all was done, he charged us £589 for the whole ordeal (emergency, Sunday evening hours, destructive open, new night latch installation). He again inspected the lock and confirmed it was faulty, and wrote this on the invoice too.

We sent over the invoice to our landlord as we assumed the cost for replacing a faulty lock should be his liability, given we hadn’t tempered with it in any way.

He wrote back saying it is the tenant’s liability and that we have no right to incur a cost at his expense.

Who should be paying the fee in this case? (There is no mention of locks in our tenancy agreement).

Thank you,

Quentin


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8:55 AM, 7th April 2023, About 2 years ago

Reply to the comment left by John Clark at 01/04/2023 - 16:11
You have to take with a pinch of salt - I meant to post a bad one for the overcharging

AP

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18:21 PM, 11th April 2023, About 2 years ago

Reply to the comment left by John Clark at 01/04/2023 - 15:26
Reputable agents have message or email auto responders with an emergency contact for various situations (boiler engineer, locksmith, electrician etc) I know other landlords who do this too if they don’t want to be disturbed at certain times.

Bill James

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12:22 PM, 27th April 2023, About 2 years ago

Last person who blamed a faulty lock after they locked themselves out was unable to send a picture of the key.

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