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Home › Blog › Locks in a French Rental: Who Pays — Tenant or Landlord?
Guide · 6 min read
Locks in a French Rental: Who Pays — Tenant or Landlord?
You're renting in Paris, something goes wrong with the lock, and the lease is in dense French legalese. Here's the actual rule, in plain English.
The principle
French law (décret n°87-712 on “réparations locatives”) puts day-to-day maintenance on the tenant and structural or age-related replacement on the landlord. Applied to locks:
A worn mechanism replaced — the cause is stated on the invoice
The tenant usually pays for…
Lockouts — slammed door, keys lost or forgotten inside
Key copies, and replacing keys the tenant lost
Small maintenance: lubricating the lock, tightening a loose handle
Damage caused by the tenant or their guests
The landlord usually pays for…
A lock that fails from age or normal wear (“vétusté”) — a 20-year-old mechanism that gives up is not your fault
Bringing the door up to basic security standards
Repairs after a break-in — though the tenant's or landlord's insurance usually steps in first (file a police report within 48 hours, then declare to the insurer within 2 working days)
💡 Changing the lock as a tenant: you may replace the cylinder for your own security (you don't have to hand daily keys to the landlord), but you must be able to restore access at the end of the lease. Keep the original cylinder in a drawer — swap it back when you move out.
The paperwork that protects you
Whoever pays, get a detailed, itemized invoice stating the cause (wear, break-in, lockout). That single document decides insurance claims and end-of-lease disputes. We issue ours in English or French, with photos on request — landlords and insurers accept them without discussion.
End-of-tenancy hardware renewal on a rental apartment
Grey zone? Ask before the work
If the cause is debatable (worn and forced?), photograph everything and let the technician state the cause in writing. We're used to writing the neutral sentence both sides can live with.
