The things nobody explains, because explaining them is bad for business.
Guides
Germany has a set of conventions around keys and locks that everyone here absorbed as a child and nobody writes down: what a Schließanlage is, why one key opens four doors, who the Hausverwaltung is, and what you owe when you hand the flat back.
None of that appears in the expat guides that currently rank for these questions, because they are written without local knowledge. Some of what follows costs us work — call the caretaker, check your insurance, wait until morning. That is deliberate.
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Keys and locks when you move into a German flat
How many keys you should get, what the handover protocol is for, what a Schließanlage means for you, and what you have to hand back when you leave.
26 August 2026 Read -
Locked out in Munich — what to do, in order
Four steps that cost nothing before you call anyone, the emergency numbers that matter, and the four questions to ask a locksmith before he sets off.
26 August 2026 Read -
Who pays the locksmith?
Locked out of a rented flat in Germany: who bears the cost, when the landlord is responsible, and which insurance policies cover a door opening.
26 August 2026 Read -
Locksmith scams in Germany
How the German locksmith scam works, the four things you can check before calling, and what your options are if you have already paid too much.
26 August 2026 Read
Why we write things that cost us work
These guides say that the caretaker often has a spare key. That household contents insurance frequently covers a door opening. That a cylinder change after a lost key is not always necessary. And that in the outer municipalities, waiting until morning saves more than the journey costs.
Every one of those sentences costs us revenue. We write them for a plain reason: in a trade where trust is the scarce commodity, advice that runs against our own interest is the only credible signal there is. Somebody who experiences us talking them out of a call-out calls us the next time.
Everything here is checkable. Figures carry their source, legal points carry their case number, and where we rely on an assessment rather than a document, we say so.
Something specific that is not here?
Just ask. Including when it will not turn into a job for us.