Smart Lock for Rental Property: A Landlord's Guide

Rekeying a lock every time a tenant moves out costs a service call and a few days without secure access. Cut keys also cannot be limited to a tenancy period — a departing tenant may keep a copy, and a landlord has no way to know if they did. A smart lock replaces the physical key with credentials that are inherently time-bound and revocable.

1. Fit a TTLock-compatible lock on the unit door and register it under a landlord or property-manager account that stays constant across tenancies.
2. Issue the tenant a passcode or eKey scoped to the tenancy dates. A timed passcode that starts on move-in day and ends on the lease end date means access stops automatically at the end of the tenancy, without a site visit.
3. Add household members individually rather than sharing one passcode among everyone on the lease, so each occupant can be added or removed without affecting the others.
4. Keep an admin credential for yourself that is never time-limited, so property access for maintenance or emergencies never depends on a tenant's own code still being valid.
5. Add a gateway if the property is not local, so codes can be issued or revoked remotely rather than requiring you to visit in person for every change.

When one tenancy ends and another begins, the process is the same regardless of how many tenants have passed through the unit:

• Delete the outgoing tenant's passcode or eKey on or before move-out, and confirm it no longer opens the door before the unit is shown to prospective tenants.
• Issue a fresh code to the incoming tenant rather than reusing the old one, so there is a clean boundary between tenancies in the access log.
• Access logs record entry events, not conversations or video, on a standard lock with no camera. Be transparent with tenants that entry/exit timestamps exist and are visible to the account admin, particularly if you plan to use them for maintenance scheduling or dispute resolution.
• Avoid checking logs routinely as surveillance. Most jurisdictions expect a landlord to respect a tenant's right to quiet enjoyment; use logs for legitimate property-management purposes, not to monitor a tenant's comings and goings.

• Never make the tenant the account admin. If a tenant is set up as an administrator rather than a standard user, they may be able to add their own codes, remove yours, or lock you out of the account entirely.
• Set an end date, don't rely on memory. A passcode with no expiry has to be manually deleted on move-out day; a timed passcode expires on its own even if the move-out is missed.
• Plan for lease extensions. If a tenancy is extended, update the passcode's end date before it expires rather than after, to avoid an unnecessary lockout.
• Smart Lukko is a third-party app. It is an independent app for TTLock-compatible locks and is not affiliated with TTLock/Sciener; keep the admin account credentials secure since they control every tenant's access.