Urgent situation with landlord (company) - asking to leave keys with neighbors

Accomodation, House and Garden
1
Hi All,

We are in an urgent situation with our landlord company (a well established rental company).

We have our flights tomorrow morning for a vacation of 4 weeks. Our rental agency has been sending some people to fix some water damage for weeks, and still haven't been able to fix the issue. They called us earlier this week, and we told them clearly that we are leaving for four weeks on Saturday and they should fix the problem before that.

They guaranteed that they will fix it on Friday. However, today they mentioned that they can't fix it because someone living on the apartment above us is unavailable and they need to check all apartments on the same day.

Later, at 5:30 PM, I got a call from the rental agency that we should leave the key to our apartment with our neighbors as they will need to enter the apartment behind us. We told them that we are uncomfortable with this situation, as we had pre-warned about this situation as we will be leaving Switzerland for 4 weeks this Saturday.

He mentioned, that we have no option and if the damage becomes bigger because of us not being available here, we will have to pay for it ourselves.

We are very surprised by this behavior and do not know what to do (our flights are tomorrow). They called us after 5 PM, so we can't even call MV to get advice.

Any recommendations on what to do? We already asked them to send an email first, and they were very unhappy that we asked them to write an email.

I am currently waiting for the email.

best regards.

2
He also mentioned that now that we have already had this conversation, if you leave without leaving keys, you will still be liable as we have informed you about the situation.

3
If you are uncomfortable with leaving the keys with a neighbour, you could leave it with a trusted friend who can come let people in on the required day.

4
Yes, we have done that, but we are uncomfortable asking them to help out with house work in our home.

What's the legal requirement here? Can they actually threaten us with this kind of situation?

What if I had not picked the phone.

5
Are you really prepared for an additional month of water damage?

Leave your keys with someone, a friend, a neighbour, the concierge. And don’t worry this isn’t unusual. When I rented our concierge had a key for my apartment and often let workmen in for various things.

6
Trying to get trades men to come and do this kind of work is difficult, you have to take them when they are available. You need to decide if you want this fixed and how much pain you want out of the situation. Mind you if there is a possibility that your stuff could be water damaged, I’d have thought that would be something to be seriously uncomfortable about!

7
I sympathise with your predicament.

There are two conflicting needs at play here: your need for comfort when it comes to letting people into your house while away vs your landlord’s need to access the property to address an emergency situation and prevent it from getting worse while you’re away.

The ideal solution would cater to both those needs.

I am no lawyer so I’ll leave that to other armchair pundits. In any case I don’t think the legal opinion would help solve this situation as I would assume that the landlord has the right to access the property in case of an emergency and you have the right to be given notice and it will eventually boil down to the opinion of a judge on who was being more unreasonable than the other. Not the kinda pickle that I would like to get myself into.

Enjoy your holiday and look forward to the issue with water damage being fully resolved when you are back

8
Unless you have giant sex toys and a private dungeon in full view then why would it be such a big deal for a friend to supervise them while they were there? I get that you value your privacy but if this is really a case of preventing further water damage to the building, something that could cost many thousands to fix if left unchecked, then you are being unreasonable and paranoid by not making any allowances.

9
I agreed that our Hausmeister has a key and can get into the apartment for things like that. He always tells me beforehand, never any issues.

10
I'm surprised that the landlord agency doesn't have a spare key which they could use, to send somebody out to open the apartment (with your permission) on the proper day.

I'm assuming that they do have a copy of the key, or a master key to all apartments, and just can't be bothered to go out themselves to sort it out.

As others have suggested, leave a key with a good friend. Perhaps offer to give them a huge meal at your expense (either at home or a restaurant) after you get back.

11
In my opinion, it is unreasonable to not give access in case of a water leak and leave for 4 weeks. In case of damage, I'm afraid that OP's insurance will also have this opinion and OP might be liable for damage.

12

They certainly do have a key, but legally they are not allowed by law, so they will never admit to having a key !!

13
OP, yes, I agree with the others: it is considered reasonable for tenants to allow access to their apartment, especially if damages are likely to increase (which is more or less granted, when water is involved). Therefore, if you're the party blocking the work, then what you have been told is accurate, namely that you will very likely be liable for the costs in all of the parts of the building affected by the work not having been done.

For this kind of thing it is, indeed, quite usual to leave the key with a neighbour and to send the neighbour's full contact details to both the landlord/agent and the caretaker.

If you don't like or trust your neighbours enough, you could also consider sending your key to the rental agency or to the caretaker. They don't have their own copy of your key. If you choose this route, however, be sure to do it before you leave Switzerland, by registered mail and also express, so that they will have it first thing on Monday morning.

Oh, and have a nice holiday!

14
Thanks everyone for the advice.

We decided to leave a key with a friend of ours who has agreed to visit our apartment when needed.

However, I believe our anger is justified because of following reasons:

1) We have informed them multiple times about our plans. They visited the apartment 5 times, and still couldn't fix the problem. They mentioned they will definitely fix today but, still didn't actually fix it.

2) We had definitely planned to leave a key before (with another friend), but we didn't feel comfortable asking them to house-sit while these people come and try to fix the issue (and fail).

3) I think this situation should be for emergencies. However, this is not an emergency because it's been going for a few weeks, and they were aware of it it for a while.

What if we didn't pick the phone, or if our flight was tonight itself. We had to spent 3 hours managing keys situation on a day when we have to pack for a month-long trip, when we have an early morning flight tomorrow.

However, we decided to leave the keys anyway.

I have two followup questions:

1) We responded to their email with the phone number and email of the the friend who has the key. Does this work?

Are we still liable for any possible damage, because we didn't leave the key with their staff or our neighbors?

2) We have put a security camera inside our apartment, which will record continuously. Should we put a note informing people about the camera? Will be liable otherwise, for recording people without their permission (even though they are inside our apartment).

15
I would say Yes and Yes - yes, it's an appropriate solution (your own representative to give access) and yes, you need to advise the landlord that you have video recording in your apartment.

Also, I assume the landlord can contact you via phone or email whilst you are away, in case there is any 'mix up' with the arrangement for the key.

It's not the landlord's fault that the repair person was not able to fix the problem easily.

Whilst you may be 'annoyed' with the delay to the repair - it sounds like it could be a) difficult to get a specialist and b) a complex problem.