Legal Question in Real Estate Law in New Hampshire
Landlords right to change locks
We are trying to sell a 2 unit rental property. To do so, we must have access to both units. We provide our tenants with 24 hour notice per our lease. We have lost the keys to the property and one tenant refuses to provide us with a copy at our expense. Can we legally hire a locksmith to change the lock and provide the tenant a copy of the key?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Landlords right to change locks
Wow. I'm expert in Mass. landlord / tenant law, and I'll allow for the possibility that NH law might be different, but I can guarantee you that you'd be cooked (in trouble) if you did that in Mass.!
In Mass., no matter what the lease says, no lease clause purporting to give blanket permission to the landlord to come in ("enter the premises") is effective or enforceable under the law; the landlord still has to get permission to enter (possibly wait for as long as it takes) without breaking in. The act of changing the locks on a tenant is a 3 or 6 month's rent penalty for the landlord culprit AND there are criminal charges.
Unless the tenant has specifically agreed, that is, and the landlord had better have that in writing besides the lease form.
So, no, landlord doesn't have the right to sell the land by itself under these circumstances.
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