Would You Have A Garage Door Opener On Your Rental?

[Grayson Wester]

We're renovating a house right now that we will keep as a rental. I noticed that there is a garage door opener and am wondering how I should approach the use of it when it comes time to rent. 

Is there a legal liability where it makes more sense to unhook it and leave the door to be opened manually? I'm thinking worst case scenario with faulty sensors, people being dumb, etc. where the landlord would end up being liable.

Aside from that, my other minor concerns are around tenants programming new remotes, moving out and then still being able to access the house.

I've never installed nor lived in a house with a garage door opener so they may be easy to reprogram once people move out.

[Kyle J.]

I have them in all my rentals. Who wants to get out of their car and manually open a garage door anymore? 

If a tenant were to ever lose a remote or keep one after moving out, I just charge them the replacement cost.

You can also easily reset/change the codes so any lost or kept remotes no longer work. Super simple to do and takes about 10 seconds.

I actually do it anyway whenever I have a tenant turnover (even if they turn in all the remotes I gave them) as part of my house re-key process because you have no way of knowing if they actually bought/programmed an extra remote that you didn’t know about. 

It’s just like if you gave your tenants 2 keys and they turned 2 keys back in. You don’t know that they didn’t make a third. You’re better off just re-keying the house, and re-programming the garage door opener, as a safety precaution for your next tenants.