Should You Rekey the Locks Between Every Tenant? A Landlord's Guide to Keys and Access

A tenant moves out, you clean the unit, and a new tenant moves in with the same set of keys the last one had. It's an easy step to skip, especially when a lease ends on good terms and nothing about the move-out felt unusual. But every set of keys that was ever cut for that unit — the tenant's own copies, anything handed to a roommate or a partner who stayed over, a spare given to a friend "just in case" — is still a working key once a new person is living behind that door.

Why Old Keys Are a Bigger Risk Than They Seem

Most tenants never misuse a copy of their old key, and most move-outs are completely uneventful. The issue isn't that any particular former tenant is a risk — it's that you usually have no way of knowing how many copies exist, who has them, or whether all of them were ever returned. A key that was cut for a roommate who left mid-lease, or a dog-sitter, or a contractor who needed access for a week, can easily be forgotten by everyone, including the tenant who requested it. Rekeying resets that unknown back to zero. It's a small, inexpensive action that removes a question you'd otherwise never be able to answer with confidence.

Rekeying vs. Replacing: You Usually Don't Need New Hardware

It's worth knowing the difference, because it affects both cost and how quickly it gets done. Replacing a lock means swapping the entire mechanism. Rekeying means a locksmith adjusts the internal pins of the existing lock so that old keys no longer work and a new key is cut to match — the hardware on the door stays the same. For most standard residential locks, rekeying is faster and considerably cheaper than full replacement, and it accomplishes the same goal: whatever keys existed before stop working. Full replacement generally only makes sense if the lock itself is worn out, damaged, or you're upgrading to a different type of lock entirely.

Making It Part of Your Turnover Routine, Not an Afterthought

The reason rekeying gets skipped isn't usually a decision not to do it — it's that turnover involves a dozen small tasks and this one doesn't visibly matter until it does. The fix is to treat it as a standard line item every time a unit turns over, the same way you'd treat a final walkthrough or a cleaning. If you're using Easy Rent Tracker to manage maintenance follow-ups, it's worth adding "rekey locks" as one of the automatic reminders that fires whenever a lease ends, right alongside the reminders you'd already have set for inspections or repairs — that way it's never a judgment call you have to remember to make on your own each time.

Who Pays, and How to Decide Upfront

Some landlords build the cost of rekeying into their standard turnover expenses as a routine cost of doing business, similar to a cleaning fee. Others pass it through as part of move-out charges when a deposit covers it. There's no single right answer, and what's reasonable can depend on your local rules around what deposit deductions are allowed to cover — which is worth checking rather than assuming. What matters more than which approach you pick is picking one and applying it consistently across every tenant, so no one can reasonably say they were treated differently than the last person in the same unit.

Keeping a Simple Record, Just in Case

If a security question ever comes up later — a dispute about who had access to a unit on a given date, or simply your own memory failing you two years from now — having a dated note of when a unit was last rekeyed is worth far more than trying to reconstruct it after the fact. A line in that unit's notes ("rekeyed 3/14, locksmith invoice attached") takes thirty seconds to add and can save you a lot of uncertainty later. Since Easy Rent Tracker keeps notes and documents attached to each property and tenant record rather than scattered across emails and texts, that kind of detail stays easy to find instead of getting buried. If a locksmith invoice is involved, logging it as an expense in the same place means your maintenance spending for that unit stays accurate when you're reviewing costs at the end of the year, rather than appearing as an unexplained charge with no context.

Don't Forget Every Other Access Point

The front door usually gets the attention, but it's rarely the only thing that opens with a key or code. Garage doors, mailboxes, storage units, gates, and shared laundry or amenity areas can all have their own access that outlasts a tenancy if nobody thinks to reset it. Keypad or smart locks raise a related but different question — a code can simply be changed rather than rekeyed, which is often even easier, but it's just as easy to forget if it isn't on the same checklist as the physical door.

None of this needs to be complicated. Decide now that rekeying (or recoding) happens between every tenant, build it into whatever turnover process you already follow, and keep a quick note of when it was done. If you're looking for a straightforward way to keep turnover tasks, notes, and costs organized in one place rather than across a dozen apps and sticky notes, it's worth taking a look at Easy Rent Tracker's plans.