What charges can I make if my tenant has lost or does not return the keys? Wales

It is always annoying when a tenant reports that keys have been lost or when they are not returned at the end of the tenancy.

Can you make a charge for this?

Unlike the English Tennat Fees legislation, the Welsh legislation does not deal specifically with lost keys but provides that ‘default fees’ can be charged so long as they are set out in the tenancy agreement.

In order to conserve consistency across our agreements we are therefore including the same clause in our Welsh tenancy agreements as we have in the English ones.

This is that you can recover the actual cost of replacement ie

• The cost of getting the new keys cut (make sure you keep the receipt), and
• The actual locksmiths cost if it is necessary to replace the lock.  Again, keep the receipt.

Provided you are able to produce the actual receipts (and provided the level of charges is reasonable) your tenants should not be able to challenge your charge.

For this reason, it is recommended that you use professional locksmiths to do this work and retain the invoices.

If you want to do the work yourself we have provided in our Schedule of Fees,  for an hourly rate of £15.  This should normally be used for out of hours calls.

However, it is easier for tenants to challenge your own charges, particularly if these are more expensive than a locksmith’s, which is why we recommend that you use a locksmith and keep the receipts.

Be aware that all the Welsh landlord and tenant legislation (including default fees) is will change dramatically when the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 comes into force, which is believed to be some time in 2021. 

In the meantime the Welsh Assembly has the power to amend the fees regulations should they fee it  necessary.