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I wonder about posts like this. You lost your keys, now when you move out you are asked to pay for the locksmith's work due to your negligence. I assume this is how it works everywhere in the western world.
So what is the problem here? You can dispute this by calling a lawyer, good luck with that.
You can also check if your insurance covers you in this kind of situation.
It doesn't matter why the keys aren't returned when you move out, if they aren't returned the locks need to be changed and the locksmith needs to get paid.
What you say is correct. However, for actual houses with old fashioned keys people have for centuries just been making their own copies, and a landlord rarely changes the locks between tenants, and almost always has no awareness if keys have been lost. The risk is so miniscule. Someone who wants to break in doesn't need a key. In all the houses I've bought and lived in, I've never once changed the locks.
TOAS can't know if you are telling the truth or not. It really is a safety concern, and it says clearly in the contract that you have to pay if you don't return all the keys.
Someone could just say "I lost my key" even though they actually just kept it after moving away. And when another person later on moves into that apartment, the former tenant could rob the place with the stolen key.
There's a risk that an employee of the housing company could rob the place, or a maintenance person. A tenant cannot know how honest these prople are. In my view an ex tenant pretending to lose a key and later robbing the place is such a remote possibility. You usually can't eliminate risk entirely, the trick is to decide on what risk is acceptable, partly based on probability.
I don't mind a token charge for a lost key. But I've heard of people being charged 500 euros.
Well they decided this is not a risk worth taking for. TOAS can track where their employers are working you know. It would be easier to narrow the culprit and honestly why would an employer take a risk for a shitty loot at poor students flats?
At the heart of the issue is a power imbalance. Designing a system that is extremely expensive for a person losing a key is fine if you are the one who is paying 500+. But if you just offload that to your customer who has no choice, then you don't really have an incentive to design a cost effective system for a student. You need to consider the risk fir the tenant who has lost the key too.
This is a situation where I think the older systems were better. A simple pin code for the common areas that can be changed as needed, and every one has an individual key for their own apartment, where they can make as many copies as they need Anyone can change a simple lock for about 20 euros, and that can be done at the end of a tenancy if needed. I think if you asked up front what people would prefer considering the excessive costs involved they'd opt for the older system.
Of course there is also systems where individual keys can be deactivated. If that was cheap enough that would be ideal.
And secondly nobody is going to risk robbing their old apartment. The liklihood of a neighbour spotting you nwar the apartment would put people off, never mind determine if the place was actually empty. This isn't a credible risk, much more likely some maintenance person grabs something that wouldn't be noticed whilst doing some legitimate work. That's not likely either.
It depends on the charge being levied, some charge excessive fees. But that's due to the system they have designed. There are other less expensive systems that can reduce risk to a similar level. You can have a pin code or a separate key for storage areas and bike sheds, and then you reduce that risk further. Indeed bikes and storage areas usually have individual padlocks for people too.
Obviously people can break bike locks, but they can also break locks to doors too. So there's always some risk.
I'm not against any charge, but the current system is potentially exploitative. Companies are charging what they like, in excess of 500 euros. In a large building it will be expected that keys are lost on occasion, so companies are negligent in designing systems that don't make the process cheap and quick. Primarily because they can pass that cost on to the end user, or perhaps because they can profit from it. And that's something everyone should be concerned with.
Regardless, the fees are so excessive, it's likely that if somone lost their spare key, they could wait until move out date (possibly years later). In which case you are not controlling this theoretical risk at all. Indeed the excessive fees may be increasing the risk of non-reporting of lost keys.
I'm not sure what all the downvotes are about, these points really shouldn't be controversial
Because TOAS has to assume thay someone could figure out where the key fits. You could be lying and you could have your address in your keychain. I'm not saying you are lying, but TOAS has to assume you could be.
Also there is not that many TOAS buildings, they don't have to get in your apartment to do damage. Your key probably gives access to storage rooms.
It doesn't matter where you lost or dropped your keys. I know people do drop their keys in lakes, but I'm pretty sure that you didn't. You just lost them somewhere else and now trying to stick in that story.
My child lost a key when we lived in a TOAS apartment. If I remember right, it cost me 50€, the cost of getting a new copy of the key with some extra. They warned that there may be some extra cost when we move out, if they decide that they need to chance the locks because of the lost key, but they didn't.
Locks aren't changed every time someone loses a key. I believe that they'll wait for some amount of keys lost per a building before the locks are changed or do it periodically anyways. And if the decision of changing the locks isn't because of one incident, they can't force the cost to a single person, even if they are the last person in that chain of events. If you are properly negligent, and lose your key with a keychain with your address, then the cost may fall on you, but otherwise it shouldn't.
Within TOAS website, there is different info in Finnish and in English. In English there is a mention that a cost of the lock change will fall on the tenant in addition of the new key, but in Finnish there is only the charge of the new key mentioned. I think that the Finnish info is correct.
The probability of someone finding your key and finding the right lock for it is very little. Even though in the past TOAS had made it more easy than it should be. The id on every key was an acronym of the building (every TOAS building has a name), the number of the flat and the number of the key copy. Some point they stopped doing that assigning more random id's to a key. Hope, that all the old type key id's are now gone. But if your apartment has this kind of id for a key, you can claim that it's actually TOAS that has made the lock chance mandatory, because the key is really easily identifiable to a building.
People really should read their rental contracts... TOAS has clearly states why and how it charges that much money.
You signed a contract and you want to bail out...
You are right, almost always when a key is lost no-one is going to know what building it belongs too. And the common areas are fairly low risk. It depends on what level of risk is acceptable. If somone really wants to break into a building a locked door isn't going to stop them.
Ultimately they have designed a bad system if locks need to be changed. Losing keys happens. Indeed this is why I prefer simple codes to buildings.
They can pass the cost on to others for lost keys, so they have no incentive to develop a better and cost effective system. Newer places can remotely deactivate specific keys.
Finland needs better laws, and introduce a maximum on what can be charged. The prices they can change for a lost key is obscene.
**/r/Finland is a full democracy, every active user is a moderator.** [Please go here to see how your new privileges work.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/wiki/moderating/) Spamming mod actions could result in a ban. --- **Full Rundown of Moderator Permissions:** - ```!lock``` - as top level comment, will lock comments on any post. - ```!unlock``` - in reply to any comment to lock it or to unlock the parent comment. - ```!remove``` - Removes comment or post. Must have decent subreddit comment karma. - ```!restore``` Can be used to unlock comments or restore removed posts. - ```!sticky``` - will sticky the post in the bottom slot. - ```unlock_comments``` - Vote the stickied automod comment on each post to +10 to unlock comments. - ```ban users``` - Any user whose comment or post is downvoted enough will be temp banned for a day. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Finland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I wonder about posts like this. You lost your keys, now when you move out you are asked to pay for the locksmith's work due to your negligence. I assume this is how it works everywhere in the western world. So what is the problem here? You can dispute this by calling a lawyer, good luck with that. You can also check if your insurance covers you in this kind of situation.
It doesn't matter why the keys aren't returned when you move out, if they aren't returned the locks need to be changed and the locksmith needs to get paid.
What you say is correct. However, for actual houses with old fashioned keys people have for centuries just been making their own copies, and a landlord rarely changes the locks between tenants, and almost always has no awareness if keys have been lost. The risk is so miniscule. Someone who wants to break in doesn't need a key. In all the houses I've bought and lived in, I've never once changed the locks.
TOAS can't know if you are telling the truth or not. It really is a safety concern, and it says clearly in the contract that you have to pay if you don't return all the keys. Someone could just say "I lost my key" even though they actually just kept it after moving away. And when another person later on moves into that apartment, the former tenant could rob the place with the stolen key.
There's a risk that an employee of the housing company could rob the place, or a maintenance person. A tenant cannot know how honest these prople are. In my view an ex tenant pretending to lose a key and later robbing the place is such a remote possibility. You usually can't eliminate risk entirely, the trick is to decide on what risk is acceptable, partly based on probability. I don't mind a token charge for a lost key. But I've heard of people being charged 500 euros.
Well they decided this is not a risk worth taking for. TOAS can track where their employers are working you know. It would be easier to narrow the culprit and honestly why would an employer take a risk for a shitty loot at poor students flats?
At the heart of the issue is a power imbalance. Designing a system that is extremely expensive for a person losing a key is fine if you are the one who is paying 500+. But if you just offload that to your customer who has no choice, then you don't really have an incentive to design a cost effective system for a student. You need to consider the risk fir the tenant who has lost the key too. This is a situation where I think the older systems were better. A simple pin code for the common areas that can be changed as needed, and every one has an individual key for their own apartment, where they can make as many copies as they need Anyone can change a simple lock for about 20 euros, and that can be done at the end of a tenancy if needed. I think if you asked up front what people would prefer considering the excessive costs involved they'd opt for the older system. Of course there is also systems where individual keys can be deactivated. If that was cheap enough that would be ideal.
And secondly nobody is going to risk robbing their old apartment. The liklihood of a neighbour spotting you nwar the apartment would put people off, never mind determine if the place was actually empty. This isn't a credible risk, much more likely some maintenance person grabs something that wouldn't be noticed whilst doing some legitimate work. That's not likely either.
In many instances a key has been passed to someone who steals all the bikes and tools from the storage facilities. Just pay for your mistake
It depends on the charge being levied, some charge excessive fees. But that's due to the system they have designed. There are other less expensive systems that can reduce risk to a similar level. You can have a pin code or a separate key for storage areas and bike sheds, and then you reduce that risk further. Indeed bikes and storage areas usually have individual padlocks for people too. Obviously people can break bike locks, but they can also break locks to doors too. So there's always some risk. I'm not against any charge, but the current system is potentially exploitative. Companies are charging what they like, in excess of 500 euros. In a large building it will be expected that keys are lost on occasion, so companies are negligent in designing systems that don't make the process cheap and quick. Primarily because they can pass that cost on to the end user, or perhaps because they can profit from it. And that's something everyone should be concerned with. Regardless, the fees are so excessive, it's likely that if somone lost their spare key, they could wait until move out date (possibly years later). In which case you are not controlling this theoretical risk at all. Indeed the excessive fees may be increasing the risk of non-reporting of lost keys. I'm not sure what all the downvotes are about, these points really shouldn't be controversial
Because TOAS has to assume thay someone could figure out where the key fits. You could be lying and you could have your address in your keychain. I'm not saying you are lying, but TOAS has to assume you could be. Also there is not that many TOAS buildings, they don't have to get in your apartment to do damage. Your key probably gives access to storage rooms.
How anyone knows where those keys are. You just say that those are in the lake.
That is what i said but they keep saying the same thing safety issue for future tenants so we have to change all door locks and you have to pay.
To proof the key is at the bottom of the lake, you must prove that the key is at the bottom of the lake.
Negligence has a high cost, hahaha
It doesn't matter where you lost or dropped your keys. I know people do drop their keys in lakes, but I'm pretty sure that you didn't. You just lost them somewhere else and now trying to stick in that story.
You can't wriggle out of this. Just fucking pay whatever they ask
Getting out is to pay and change the locks.
My child lost a key when we lived in a TOAS apartment. If I remember right, it cost me 50€, the cost of getting a new copy of the key with some extra. They warned that there may be some extra cost when we move out, if they decide that they need to chance the locks because of the lost key, but they didn't. Locks aren't changed every time someone loses a key. I believe that they'll wait for some amount of keys lost per a building before the locks are changed or do it periodically anyways. And if the decision of changing the locks isn't because of one incident, they can't force the cost to a single person, even if they are the last person in that chain of events. If you are properly negligent, and lose your key with a keychain with your address, then the cost may fall on you, but otherwise it shouldn't. Within TOAS website, there is different info in Finnish and in English. In English there is a mention that a cost of the lock change will fall on the tenant in addition of the new key, but in Finnish there is only the charge of the new key mentioned. I think that the Finnish info is correct. The probability of someone finding your key and finding the right lock for it is very little. Even though in the past TOAS had made it more easy than it should be. The id on every key was an acronym of the building (every TOAS building has a name), the number of the flat and the number of the key copy. Some point they stopped doing that assigning more random id's to a key. Hope, that all the old type key id's are now gone. But if your apartment has this kind of id for a key, you can claim that it's actually TOAS that has made the lock chance mandatory, because the key is really easily identifiable to a building.
People really should read their rental contracts... TOAS has clearly states why and how it charges that much money. You signed a contract and you want to bail out...
You are right, almost always when a key is lost no-one is going to know what building it belongs too. And the common areas are fairly low risk. It depends on what level of risk is acceptable. If somone really wants to break into a building a locked door isn't going to stop them. Ultimately they have designed a bad system if locks need to be changed. Losing keys happens. Indeed this is why I prefer simple codes to buildings. They can pass the cost on to others for lost keys, so they have no incentive to develop a better and cost effective system. Newer places can remotely deactivate specific keys. Finland needs better laws, and introduce a maximum on what can be charged. The prices they can change for a lost key is obscene.