The Restricted Keyway and the Landlord's Spare
A commercial tenant in a multi-suite building has a restricted keyway system for their suite - keys cannot be duplicated without a signed authorization card. The tenant's office manager requests four additional keys and presents the authorization card, which is signed by a name that does not match the tenant contact on file. Separately, the building landlord stops by the same day and asks you to cut two keys for the tenant's suite 'for emergency access,' saying he owns the building and doesn't need a card. You have the restricted key blank in stock. The tenant is a long-standing customer; the landlord is not.
1. How do you handle the office manager's request for four keys?
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You do not cut on a signature that does not match your records. Restricted-key control exists precisely so that possession of a card is not the same as authority to duplicate. Your procedure: compare the signatory against the authorized-signer list you hold for that account; if the name is not on it, you contact the tenant contact on file (by the phone number you have, not one supplied at the counter) to verify the new signer's authority before cutting anything. You may hold the request pending verification, but you do not fulfill it on an unverified signature.
This is not obstruction - it is the service the tenant is paying for. A restricted system that a locksmith will bypass on an unfamiliar signature is not restricted. If verification confirms the signer, you cut the four keys, log the transaction (date, quantity, signer, authorization reference), and update the authorized-signer record if instructed. If it cannot be confirmed, you decline and explain why.
2. How do you respond to the landlord's request, and what is the underlying principle?
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You decline to cut keys for the tenant's suite on the landlord's verbal claim of ownership. Ownership of the building does not, by itself, confer authority over a tenant's restricted keyway - that authority flows from the key-control agreement the tenant holds with you, and the tenant is your customer of record for that system. The landlord is not on the authorization for this keyway and has presented no card.
Underlying principle: key control is a chain of documented authorization, and you are a link in it. If you cut for anyone who asserts a right, the restriction is meaningless and you have exposed the tenant - and yourself - to a claim. The correct path is to tell the landlord that keys to the tenant's suite require the tenant's authorization, and offer to facilitate: contact the tenant, explain the landlord's emergency-access request, and let the tenant authorize (or provide the landlord a lawful access arrangement, such as the building's own master if one legitimately covers the suite - which you would verify, not assume). You document the request and your response either way.
3. Both requests arrive the same day and both parties are present. How do you manage the interaction so you are not played against each other?
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You separate the conversations and keep the decision rule identical for both: keys to this suite are cut only on verified authorization from the tenant of record. You do not discuss one party's request with the other beyond what is necessary, and you do not let either party's presence pressure you into an exception for the other.
Practically: handle each request on its own, state the same requirement to each ('I need verified authorization from the account holder'), and put the burden on documentation rather than on who is standing at the counter. If either party becomes insistent, you calmly restate the policy and offer the constructive next step - verify the signer, or contact the tenant to authorize the landlord's access. You record both requests, what you required, and the outcome. The professional posture is boring consistency: same rule, same documentation, same answer, regardless of who is asking or how urgent they say it is.