Should You Rekey an Apartment After Every Tenant?

A property manager asked us this in a hallway in Saskatoon, holding a full set of returned keys: the tenant had been there four years, left on good terms, and handed back everything issued on day one. Did the suite really need rekeying?

Yes. And the returned keys are the reason the question feels harder than it is.

The short answer, and the real question

The question is never “did we get the keys back.” It is how many keys to this unit exist, and who holds them?

Over a four-year tenancy, a standard key gets copied. A partner, a parent, an adult child, a dog walker, a cleaner, a roommate who moved out two years ago, a boyfriend who did not leave on good terms. None of those copies were issued by you, none were recorded, and none come back at the end. A basic key blank is cut at any hardware store in minutes, for a couple of dollars, with nobody asking who the person is or whether they have a right to the door.

So a returned key set tells you the tenant was organised. It tells you nothing about the state of the door.

Rekey between tenancies as a standing rule, not a judgement call. The moment it becomes a judgement call, someone has to decide which tenants seem trustworthy, and that is both an awkward conversation and the wrong basis for a security decision. For the rest of the portfolio picture, see our page for property managers.

What rekeying actually is

Rekeying is not changing the lock. The lock stays on the door. A locksmith pulls the cylinder, changes the stack of small pins inside it so it matches a different key, and puts it back. The old key no longer turns; the hardware, the finish and the door are untouched.

That distinction matters at turnover because it is what makes doing it every time affordable. You are not buying hardware — you are buying a few minutes of work on a cylinder you already own. Our post on rekey or replace covers when a lock has reached the end of that road and genuinely needs replacing instead, and lock repair and rekeying is the service itself.

The mistake that costs the most: rekeying off the master

This is the one we get called to undo.

If your building runs a master key system, each suite has its own change key, and your staff key or building master opens everything. That is achieved with an extra set of pins inside every cylinder. It is precise, and it is designed as one system across the whole building.

A hardware-store rekeying kit does not know any of that. It re-pins the cylinder to the key in the package and takes the master pins out. The suite now opens with its new key and your master key no longer works on that door. Nobody notices until there is a flood at 2am and the on-call staff member cannot get in.

We find these in ones and twos across a building, each one from a well-meant afternoon of maintenance. Re-pinning them back onto the system is straightforward work, but it is work you paid for twice. If the building is masterkeyed, suite rekeys belong with whoever holds the system’s key schedule.

When rekeying is not optional

Between tenancies is the routine case. These are the ones to treat as same-week work regardless of policy:

• An eviction, or any tenancy that ended badly. This is the highest-risk door in the building until it is done.
• A key reported lost or stolen during a tenancy — including a staff key, which is far worse because of what it opens.
• After a break-in, whether or not a key was involved.
• After contractors held keys for a renovation, especially where a key was left in a lockbox.
• Any time nobody can say with confidence where all the keys are. Uncertainty is the trigger.

Key control is the actual fix

Rekeying handles the door you know about. It does nothing about the next tenant making copies.

If you are tired of that loop, the answer is a restricted keyway: a patented key blank that ordinary key-cutting machines do not stock and that we only cut for people on your authorised list. The key itself is usually stamped so it is obvious what it is. Copies stop being something that happens quietly, and start being something that has to be requested.

That does not remove the need to rekey at turnover — a tenant can still hand a key to someone. It does mean you finally know how many keys exist, which is the question this whole article is really about. See key duplication and high-security locks, and our page for apartment buildings.

Don’t stop at the suite door

At turnover the suite door gets attention and the rest of the tenant’s keyring does not. Work through the list:

• The common entrance — the door that matters most, because it protects every other tenant, and the one people are most reluctant to rekey because every resident needs a new key.
• Mailbox. Missed constantly. A mailbox key in the wrong hands is an identity-theft problem, not a break-in one.
• Storage locker, where one exists.
• Laundry, bike room, parkade fob or remote.
• Mechanical and roof access, if a key ever left the office.

The common entrance is also the door where key control quietly stops mattering, because a door that does not latch is open to everyone whatever the key does. If the entrance needs a shove, drags on the sweep or sits ajar in the wind, fix that before you spend anything on keys — the causes are in why a commercial door will not close or latch. It is also the argument for electronic access on that one door even in a building that stays mechanical everywhere else.

Where keypads and fobs change the maths

On an electronic lock or an access control system, turnover stops being a locksmith visit. You delete the old credential, issue a new one, and the change takes effect immediately. There is no pinning, no trip, and a record of who opened the door and when.

The honest trade-offs: the hardware costs more up front, it needs power, batteries go flat faster in a cold Saskatchewan entrance than the spec sheet suggests, and somebody has to own the administration — an access system nobody prunes accumulates ex-tenants. Our access control basics post covers how they behave in a power cut, and access control and smart locks cover the hardware.

Most buildings we work with in Saskatoon and Regina land in the middle: electronic on the common entrance and any amenity door, mechanical on the suites, with the suites on a restricted master system.

A turnover policy that holds up

1. Rekey the suite between every tenancy, no exceptions and no judgement calls.
2. Batch turnovers where you can. Several suites in one visit costs much less per door than one suite at a time, because travel is the bigger half of a small job.
3. Keep suites on the building master, and never let a hardware-store kit near a masterkeyed cylinder.
4. Record which change key each suite is on. If you cannot produce that list, that is the first job.
5. Rekey immediately — not at turnover — after an eviction, a lost key, a break-in, or contractor access.
6. Include the mailbox, locker and common-area keys in the same visit.
7. Move to a restricted keyway when you are ready to stop the copying loop, and treat the common entrance as the first candidate for electronic access.

One thing we will not tell you

What the law requires. Whether a rekey is obligatory, who pays for it, and what notice a tenant is owed are questions for your lease and for the Saskatchewan Office of Residential Tenancies or your own counsel — not for your locksmith. We are happy to be told which of those applies and to invoice whoever you say.

What we can tell you is the part that is ours: how many keys are likely out there, what it takes to make that number zero again, and how to do it across a portfolio without paying for the same door twice.

We rekey suites, maintain master key systems and service common-area doors for buildings across Saskatoon, Regina and the surrounding communities. Contact us or book a service call, and if you manage more than one building, ask about putting the portfolio on one key schedule.