Who pays the locksmith?

The question that decides it

German tenancy law divides responsibility along one line, and it is not the line most people expect.

What happened in your sphere, you pay for. You locked yourself out. You lost the key. You snapped it because you forced it. That is carelessness, and the cost is yours.

What broke on the building, the landlord pays for. A lock that failed by itself. A cylinder worn out after years. A door that has settled and no longer closes. That is maintenance, and maintenance is the landlord’s obligation.

So the boundary is not between inside and outside. It is between operator error and material failure.

When you pay

The normal case, and the more common one:

• The door latched shut with the key inside
• You lost the key
• The key is in the lock on the inside and you are outside
• You locked up and cannot find the key

In all of these the flat is fine and you are the one who cannot get in. The landlord has nothing to do with it and owes nothing.

When the landlord pays

These get overlooked regularly:

• The lock is defective. The key turns without effect, jams, or cannot be withdrawn — and not because of force on your part.
• The cylinder is worn out. After many years that is ordinary wear, not operator error.
• The door has settled. The building has moved, the bolt no longer meets the strike plate, and eventually nothing works.
• The key snapped because the cylinder was stiff. The most important and most disputed case — see below.

If one of these applies, it is a defect to be remedied. Report it, and do not have it repaired at your own expense without giving notice first.

The one email that decides several hundred euros

A key rarely snaps without warning. Usually the cylinder has been getting stiffer for weeks, the key takes more and more force, and eventually the metal fatigues at the shoulder.

Whether that counts as your carelessness or as a building defect turns on one thing: whether you reported it beforehand.

If you wrote to the Hausverwaltung that the lock was stiff, it was a known defect and the consequential costs are the landlord’s. If you said nothing and kept forcing it for weeks, your duty of care is in question and you will probably pay.

The practical consequence: when a lock becomes hard to turn, send an email to the property management. Two sentences and a timestamp. It is the cheapest insurance policy in existence.

Keep it in writing. A phone call you cannot prove is worth nothing in this particular argument.

What insurance covers

Check before assuming you are not covered. Three policies come into question, and Germans routinely hold all three without knowing what is in them.

Hausratversicherung — household contents insurance

The most common case. Many household contents policies cover a door opening — often not in the basic cover but as an add-on module, which is nonetheless very widespread. Some tariffs also cover a cylinder replacement after a lost key.

What is covered is in your policy conditions and not in any guide. Look under Schlüsselverlust or Türöffnung, or call and ask.

Schlüsselversicherung — key insurance

Sometimes standalone, sometimes included in a contents or liability policy. Particularly relevant for a Schließanlage, a building-wide locking system: if a lost key compromises the system, this is not one cylinder but many — and that is the order of magnitude these policies exist for.

Privathaftpflicht — private liability insurance

Applies when you have lost somebody else’s key: your employer’s, the building’s, a club’s. In many tariffs a lost key is covered, again frequently as a module.

What every insurer will want

A proper invoice. Specifically with:

• the business’s full address
• the date and time of the job
• the address where the door was opened
• the work itemised
• the VAT shown separately

A handwritten note against cash meets none of these. That is one of the practical reasons not to agree to a provider who insists on cash and writes no invoice — you not only pay more, you also cannot claim it back.

Photograph the door and the invoice as well, and note the time. It takes a minute and is the difference in a dispute.

If you own rather than rent

In an owner-occupied flat the split is different. Your flat door is yours. The building entrance belongs to the Eigentümergemeinschaft — the owners’ association, meaning all owners collectively. That is why no single resident can decide to change a cylinder there.

In practice: your own door is your decision. Everything in the shared parts runs through the management and is apportioned by ownership share.

Subletting and shared flats

If you sublet, your contractual partner is the main tenant rather than the owner. For the cost question that means: you settle it with the main tenant, and the main tenant with the landlord.

In a shared flat, agree the rules before anything happens. Who pays if somebody locks themselves out? Who pays for a cylinder change when a flatmate moves out and keeps a key? Both occur, and both are easier to settle in advance.

What to do today

Four things, under ten minutes in total:

1. Look at your insurance conditions. Search for Türöffnung and Schlüsselverlust. If it is not covered, ask what the module costs — usually a few euros a year.
2. Report a stiff lock in writing. To the Hausverwaltung. That is the sentence that later decides several hundred euros.
3. Find out whether your door is on a Schließanlage. If one key also opens the building entrance, a loss is a matter for the whole building.
4. Leave a spare key with somebody nearby. That solves the cost question by preventing it.

One caveat

This guide sets out the general principles, not the answer in your case. German tenancy law is decided case by case, and the wording of your tenancy agreement and your policy conditions overrides any general rule.

Where larger sums are involved — replacing a locking system, for instance — get advice. The Mieterverein (tenants’ association) and the Verbraucherzentrale (consumer advice centre) are the cheapest addresses for that, and both have a Munich office. The Verbraucherzentrale advises in English by arrangement.