Tenant locked out, should I charge a fee?

[Samantha Klein]

Hi everyone, around 9PM last Friday night, my tenant texts to say she locked her keys in her apartment and asked if I would stop by to let her in, this was 9PM at night but I only live 5 min from the property so I agreed. I inherited this tenant and she's been on time with rent, however, she's kind of evasive, she tried to avoid me for the first 3 weeks when I took over the building. I would say my relationship with her is good however there is a $50 lock out fee in the lease and I feel like I should charge it because I want her to know that I am holding her feet to the fire with the agreement but on the other hand, I did not mention any fee when I opened her door and don't want her attitude towards me to change over $50, what do you think?

[Kyle J.]

I once had brand new tenants lock themselves out when they were first moving in.  It was about 8-9pm at night and they had their friends/family there helping them move all their stuff in, and someone accidentally locked the keys inside.  They called me and I went over and unlocked the door for them because I wanted to get off on the right foot.  Also, it was much easier for me to just make a quick drive over there and unlock it for them so they could continue with the move than it would have been if they would have had to call a locksmith at that time of night and wait around while all their friends/family sat idly by with all their belongings still in the moving truck out front.

I can tell you that they definitely appreciated it and I'm glad I did it.  

I also learned something from that incident that caused me to never have a lockout again. Prior to that night, I installed deadbolts and locking doorknobs on all the front doors of my rentals.  However, I realized that is the exact setup that allows lockouts to occur in the first place.  Someone will end up inadvertently locking the doorknob and closing the door before they realize the keys are still inside.  

So how did I prevent this from ever happening again?  I changed the locking doorknobs on the front door to non-locking doorknobs (called passage/hall/closet knobs).  That way, you have to have the key with you to lock the deadbolt from the outside and there is no way to lock the front door and then close it while your keys are still inside.  Problem solved.  In the years since, I have never had another tenant lockout.