Updated 3 days ago on . Most recent reply
Renter failed to return keys
I rented my basement apartment to a friend without a formal lease agreement. She has moved out completely and was to return the keys at end of month and failed to. I never required her to pay a deposit. Can I file suit for the cost of changing locks and for prorated rent days she continues to hold the keys? TIA
Most Popular Reply
There are probably a bunch of details left out of your post, so I'll throw in a few comments and suggestions.
You broke some critical rules for being a good landlord: No lease, no deposit. No lease means no terms nor conditions, so what is your legal basis for demanding anything? Think of that before you waste your money on a lawsuit. You may have a case if you have a verbal agreement with your friend who agrees to the existence of the verbal agreement.
Is the tenant still a friend? Did you try calling your friend to return the keys? She could always mail them back to you. My guess is this friendship is over from your post.
Failure to return the keys is not a justification to keep charging rent. It seems pretty clear your tenant told you she was going to move out completely and did so, so the place is yours. If so, that is sufficient to end the lease (which doesn't exist) and take possession. Don't forget to convert the utilities to yourself if they are separate.
A landlord best practice is to always change the locks when there is a turnover regardless of the tenant returning the keys to you. You have no idea if they gave friends and family copies of the keys. Assume they did and change the locks. That's on you. There are some nice lock sets, such as KwikSet, that allow you to easily remove the lock cylinder instead of replacing the whole lock for each turnover. Your future lock changes can be about 1 minute each. You can also go with a code lock and just change the code with a turnover.