This is a question both landlords and tenants seem to ask quite a lot so here are my comments.
It depends on the type of tenancy you have.
If the tenant is renting a room in a shared house
By this I mean if the tenant has his (or her) own tenancy agreement for their own room and share the rest of the property with the other tenants – all of whom also have their own tenancy for their own room, etc
Then yes, the doors should have locks on them. The room is the ‘property’ that the tenant is renting and as this is a tenancy, they have the right to keep everyone out. Including you.
So the room has to have a lock.
If the tenant is renting a house or flat jointly with other tenants
By this I mean if all the tenants have signed one agreement, together. Here it is really up to the parties what they want and what they agree.
So far as the legal situation is concerned, the tenants are renting the whole of the property together. So they all have an equal right to use all the rooms.
Of course they will almost certainly each have their own room in the property and may want to keep their fellow joint tenants out of it.
But they don’t have a legal right to require the landlord to put locks on the doors, if they are not there already. It is up to the tenants to sort this out themselves.
If asked, the landlord may or may not give permission for the tenant to put their own locks on the doors.
Although if the landlord refuses permission, there is not really anything they can do to stop the tenant putting a lock on the door anyway, at their own expense.
However if this damages the door in any way or if the landlord really does not want the lock there, the landlord will normally be entitled (if the lock was added against their wishes) to claim for the cost of getting the lock removed and the door made good from the deposit at the end of the tenancy.
Apart from the legal position, there are other reasons why landlord’s should resist putting locks on bedroom doors, when all the tenants have signed one agreement:
1) If the house is burgled, then the damage will be more substantial if thieves break down locked doors.
2) The last tenant vacating the house should be able to close/lock all windows. This is particularly important in a student house, where there is often a ground floor bedroom. The tenant would be negligent if they left a window open in a locked bedroom and the house was burgled.
3) In the event of fire it is potentially easier to escape from an unlocked area.
4) It can make an inspection of the property more challenging, if some members of the group are absent and they have locked their bedrooms.
5) It’s another key for the tenant to lose!
This is a rare time that I specifaclly disagree with Tessa; although the disagreement may be semantic.
I do not think that properties let on room tenancies should (as in MUST) have a lock on the room door. It is possibly correct that they should (as in it is a good idea or reasonable to do so, unless it was being argued that the structure, as in the walls and opening of the room were unfit. I think that would be too much of a stretch of legislative meaning.
However under mandatory HMO , or addtional licensing, ot the HMO Management Regs 2006 it may be a locally determined requirement.
This issue was a regular complaint for student/young pro shares and I was never able to establish a common or statutory legal requirement.
However I am always open to being given a convincing alternative opinion.
@Colin I don’t think it is actually specifically set out anywhere in tablets of stone. However if you are renting your own room in a shared house on an individual basis – where you do not have any choice over the other occupants – then I think it is implicit in the type of letting that the door should be lockable. After all you would not rent out a house with no lock on the door.
@Terry Those are excellent practical reasons why joint and several shared properties should not have locks on internal doors. Plus in those tenancies the tenants have a choice over who they share with. Tenants should take care to only sign a tenancy agreement jointly with someone they trust.
In my area, any internal lock must be of the type that can be opened from the inside without a key to comply with fire regs.
Some BTL mortgages that allow letting to sharers on a single (joint) AST, don’t allow locks on the bedroom doors.
We do not allow locks on our (shared flats) bedroom doors with a maximum of 4 tenants. All tenants sign one agreement for the whole flat and usually pay one amount in rent to us for the whole flat (sometimes we accept individual payments) No locks enforces the idea that they SHARE the whole flat and therefore cleaning only their “own room” is unacceptable, they need to clean all common areas too.
Rarely tenants ask to put locks on the doors and the reasons we refuse are due to the following:
1. a particular lock that does not requite a key to exit from inside the room is the only lock acceptable in a shared property due to fire regulations;
2. if each tenant has a TV in their own room, with a lock on the door, then each tenant will need a TV licence;
3. if the council decide to check and find locks on each door they can decide to charge council tax to each room independently;
A tenant once asked for a lock to be put on as they were unable to find an insurance company to insure their contents without it. I therefore researched the market and found 2 leading providers who provided this insurance on shared properties and forwarded the details to my tenant, who was then happy with no lock.
In addition I firmly believe that when a tenant leaves the building, if they do have a lock on their bedroom door they will ensure that is closed and locked, but do not check that other doors/windows are closed before leaving, thus leaving the property more vulnerable to being burgled.
@Yvette Newbury
Your points are likely to persuade tenants but are not strictly true.
1. “a particular lock that does not require a key to exit from inside the room is the only lock acceptable in a shared property due to fire regulations” – I would agree if it were an HMO otherwise it need not be a requirement.
2. Disagree – “if each tenant has a TV in their own room, with a lock on the door, then each tenant will need a TV licence” – This assumes separate tenancies. If it is a joint tenancy a single TV license is acceptable for the entire house regardless of the number of TV’s and their locations.
3. Disagree – “if the council decide to check and find locks on each door they can decide to charge council tax to each room independently” – This might be true for say a self contained flat within a block with exclusive access and possession. Tenants sharing some basic amenities like kitchen, bathroom or lounge do not have exclusive possession and further if they have a joint tenancy cannot legally exclude fellow house-mates (notwithstanding exclusive bedrooms is what they agree between themselves) and so keys are irrelevant to LAs in this context. Even individual tenancies, and sharing amenities would share such a property as a single dwelling and be assessed as such.
Ah, all this talk of burglars..
Let’s be honest, locked (with a key) internal doors will likely deter theft more than encourage it; whatever side you get to them from. Most burglars are opportunists, not interested in sticking around that long. The other sort will have likely cased the joint and know not to bother. (this being a housesahre with so many ppl coming and going).
As for TV’s, just let each tenant decide; many will not want a TV anyway, opting to watch everything on their laptop now.
As for “challenging inspections” and “lost keys” pls stop with these self-interested excuses.
Many a houseshare gets filled room-by-room and / or filled by the agent or landlord without consulting the current tenants. Tenants will want key locks for the obvious reasons, like privacy and security / peace of mind. (Your needs don’t trump theirs, incidentally). But this just demonstrates again how legislation continues to let tenants down.
“Just Saying”, I think you are describing a setup that should never happen, e.g. people that don’t know and choose each other being on a joint AST.
There are only two clean setups:
1) An separate AST for each bedroom room, locks on each bedroom room, landlord chooses each tenant as and when the room becomes empty. Landlord takes the risk of the kitchen etc getting damaged not expecting tenants for pay for each other damage.
2) All the sharers know each other and choose to form a group; the group rents the complete property on a joint AST. All the tenants being responsible for paying for any damage etc any of them do. No locks on doors, as the tenants know each other, and they each have full legal access to the complete property.
@Ian you are absolutely right. The legislation for joint tenancies is intended for situations where people choose who they share with.
Landlords should not force new occupiers on joint tenants and indeed the existing tenants have the legal right to keep them out.
Likewise if one tenant on a joint tenancy wishes to leave or stops paying their share of the rent, the group must understand that the problem has nothing whatsoever to do with the landlord.
You cannot have your cake of lower rent on a joint tenancy while expecting the benefits (e.g. locks on bedrooms) of being on separate ASTs.
“I think you are describing a setup that should never happen, e.g. people that don’t know and choose each other being on a joint AST.”
Should never happen, no. But certainly does.
Tenants are told then, that :
a) security, privacy and peace of mind only matter when you’re strangers. b) those locks don’t even need keys c) daring to ask for locks-with-keys in a joint teancy means you have an unrealistic sense of entitlement, apparently.
Of course, none of those things is actually true. Or realistic.
I expect it does happen but it shouldn’t.
Tenants need to protect themselves and not take on joint tenancies with people they do not know – which is a very dangerous thing to do. Not only is there the keys issue – they are also making themselves personally liable for the rent arrears racked up and damage done to the property by all their joint tenants!
I can understand that tenants feel under pressure because there is limited accommodation available and feel that they have to take what they can get.
However that is not the fault of the legal system!
The trouble is Tessa, many a letting agent or landlord that doesn’t care for what suits the tenants, and preferring joint tenancies for those very reasons. As Ian put it a missed rent payment “has nothing whatsoever to do with the landlord”.
Tenants are under pressure, certainly. When you say “However that is not the fault of the legal system!” I think you mean “If a tenant signs a joint tenancy, then they must accept their fate”. Of course we know that. But it isn’t so constructive. The blog post has been very welcome tho, thankyou.
The problems in the industry would be partially solved if we could have proper agent and landlord regulation. But it seems that is some way off. But this is the fault of the government who seem strangely reluctant to introduce it.