Common Area Keys

COMMON AREA KEYS

QUESTION: The board recently re-keyed the building and gave keys to all residents. Absentee owners requested keys for themselves. Is the board required to give keys to absentee owners?

ANSWER. No. When owners lease their units to tenants, they transfer their common area rights to their tenants. Liebler v. Point Loma Tennis Club. As a result, absentee owners do not have a right to common area keys. There are valid reasons for such restrictions. The first is security. The more keys in circulation, the less secure the building becomes. The other reason is facility usage. If both owners and tenants have access to facilities, it increases the load on those facilities. Accordingly, associations may limit access by limiting the distribution of keys.

NOTE: Even though boards can restrict distribution of keys, absentee owners may still enter the property as guests of their tenants. They also have the right to attend board meetings and annual meetings and to vote, with or without tenant permission. There is a difference of opinion on this issue with some citing Civil Code §1361.5 as support for their position that absentee owners have a right to common area keys.

GATE KEYS

QUESTION: Can the board refuse to provide gate keys to renters and reserve them for owners only?

ANSWER: A renter acquires all of the owner's ingress and egress rights when he/she takes possession of the owner's unit. To stop the proliferation of keys, many associations are switching over to computer operated card key systems. Card keys cannot be duplicated and the association can deactivate any that are lost or stolen.

Updated 8/25/2008